What was the first living thing like according to evolutionists

[TsukinoRei]

Therefore there is no answer for what was the first living thing from evolutionary science/

 

Evolution is a false theory.

 

Even its backers cannot defend it.

 

It can't be defended to you because your arguments against it demonstrate no understanding of the theory.  I'm not saying that evolution is either correct or incorrect.  But I will say that before a theory can be disproven, any person arguing against it must first demonstrate that they understand the theory.  I say the same thing to atheists who demonstrate a lack of understanding of faith when they argue against it.  Such arguments are proven false by their nature.  If you truly believe that evolution is false then make an argument against it that demonstrates that you understand what it is.

 

These may help.  When all of these are understood a better argument can be made against evolution that demonstrates an understanding of what is being argued against.

 

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01

http://www.paleolibrarian.info/2012/06/how-mathematics-can-prove-evolution.html

http://educ.jmu.edu/~rosenhjd/sewell.pdf

Edited August 10, 2013 by TsukinoRei

[MarkNigro]

 

Therefore there is no answer for what was the first living thing from evolutionary science/

 

Evolution is a false theory.

 

Even its backers cannot defend it.

 

It can't be defended to you because your arguments against it demonstrate no understanding of the theory.  I'm not saying that evolution is either correct or incorrect.  But I will say that before a theory can be disproven, any person arguing against it must first demonstrate that they understand the theory.  I say the same thing to atheists who demonstrate a lack of understanding of faith when they argue against it.  Such arguments are proven false by their nature.  If you truly believe that evolution is false then make an argument against it that demonstrates that you understand what it is.

 

These may help.  When all of these are understood a better argument can be made against evolution that demonstrates an understanding of what is being argued against.

 

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01

http://www.paleolibrarian.info/2012/06/how-mathematics-can-prove-evolution.html

http://educ.jmu.edu/~rosenhjd/sewell.pdf

 

I understand the theory all to well.

 

You cannot defend something that does not exist.

 

The topic is what was the the first living thing according to the evolutionist.

 

There is no answer. And since I understand the issues all too well, any answer will easily be shown to be false.

[TsukinoRei]

 

 

Therefore there is no answer for what was the first living thing from evolutionary science/

 

Evolution is a false theory.

 

Even its backers cannot defend it.

 

It can't be defended to you because your arguments against it demonstrate no understanding of the theory.  I'm not saying that evolution is either correct or incorrect.  But I will say that before a theory can be disproven, any person arguing against it must first demonstrate that they understand the theory.  I say the same thing to atheists who demonstrate a lack of understanding of faith when they argue against it.  Such arguments are proven false by their nature.  If you truly believe that evolution is false then make an argument against it that demonstrates that you understand what it is.

 

These may help.  When all of these are understood a better argument can be made against evolution that demonstrates an understanding of what is being argued against.

 

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01

http://www.paleolibrarian.info/2012/06/how-mathematics-can-prove-evolution.html

http://educ.jmu.edu/~rosenhjd/sewell.pdf

 

I understand the theory all to well.

 

You cannot defend something that does not exist.

 

The topic is what was the the first living thing according to the evolutionist.

 

There is no answer. And since I understand the issues all too well, any answer will easily be shown to be false.

 

 

Here you go; 

 

 

 

Most evolutionary biologists theorize that the first living organisms were single-celled prokariotes similar to currently existing bacteria. 

The distinction between proto-biotic and true life is a difficult one, so while there were self-replicating amino acid chains, the first life would have been a distinct cell that divided in an aqueous (watery) environment.  (see related link on abiogenesis)What is life, exactly? This is a question that keeps biologists up at night. The science of biology is the study of life, yet scientists can't agree on an absolute definition. Are the individual cells of your body, with all their complex machinery, "alive?" What about a computer program that learns and evolves? Can a wild fire - which feeds, grows, and reproduces - be considered a living entity?  http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_first_living_organism_on_Earth

http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/226/defining-life

 

Trying to define life is not just a philosophical exercise. We need to understand what separates living creatures from non-living matter before we can claim to find life elsewhere in the Universe.

In 1944, the physicist Erwin Shrodinger defined living matter as that which "avoids the decay into equilibrium." This definition refers to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that entropy always increases. Entropy is often referred to as chaos or disorder, but really it is the spreading out of energy towards a state of uniformity. This law can be seen in a cold glass of water that slowly grows warmer until it is the same temperature as the surrounding air. Because of this trend toward equilibrium, the Universe eventually will have a complete lack of structure, consisting of evenly spread atoms of equal warmth. 

But living things, said Shrodinger, are able to postpone this trend. Consider: while you are alive your body maintains its structure, but once you die your body begins to break down through bacterial action and chemical processes. Eventually the atoms of your body are evenly spread out, recycled by the Earth. To die is to submit your body to the entropy of the Universe.

Living things resist entropy by taking in nutrients. This biochemical process of taking in energy for activities and expelling waste byproducts is known as a "metabolism." If metabolism is a sign of life, scientists can look for the waste byproducts of a metabolism when searching for life on other worlds.

 

 

 

  So you see, there is no one organism that scientists agree was the first living organism.  Rather, they have some ideas about what might have been the first living organism based on their theories.  Any suggestion that the discussion itself is evidence against any theory shows a lack of understanding of science.

Edited August 10, 2013 by TsukinoRei

[MarkNigro]

 

 

 

Therefore there is no answer for what was the first living thing from evolutionary science/

 

Evolution is a false theory.

 

Even its backers cannot defend it.

 

It can't be defended to you because your arguments against it demonstrate no understanding of the theory.  I'm not saying that evolution is either correct or incorrect.  But I will say that before a theory can be disproven, any person arguing against it must first demonstrate that they understand the theory.  I say the same thing to atheists who demonstrate a lack of understanding of faith when they argue against it.  Such arguments are proven false by their nature.  If you truly believe that evolution is false then make an argument against it that demonstrates that you understand what it is.

 

These may help.  When all of these are understood a better argument can be made against evolution that demonstrates an understanding of what is being argued against.

 

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01

http://www.paleolibrarian.info/2012/06/how-mathematics-can-prove-evolution.html

http://educ.jmu.edu/~rosenhjd/sewell.pdf

 

I understand the theory all to well.

 

You cannot defend something that does not exist.

 

The topic is what was the the first living thing according to the evolutionist.

 

There is no answer. And since I understand the issues all too well, any answer will easily be shown to be false.

 

 

Here you go; 

 

 

 

Most evolutionary biologists theorize that the first living organisms were single-celled prokariotes similar to currently existing bacteria. 

The distinction between proto-biotic and true life is a difficult one, so while there were self-replicating amino acid chains, the first life would have been a distinct cell that divided in an aqueous (watery) environment.  (see related link on abiogenesis)What is life, exactly? This is a question that keeps biologists up at night. The science of biology is the study of life, yet scientists can't agree on an absolute definition. Are the individual cells of your body, with all their complex machinery, "alive?" What about a computer program that learns and evolves? Can a wild fire - which feeds, grows, and reproduces - be considered a living entity?  http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_first_living_organism_on_Earth

http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/226/defining-life

 

Trying to define life is not just a philosophical exercise. We need to understand what separates living creatures from non-living matter before we can claim to find life elsewhere in the Universe.

In 1944, the physicist Erwin Shrodinger defined living matter as that which "avoids the decay into equilibrium." This definition refers to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that entropy always increases. Entropy is often referred to as chaos or disorder, but really it is the spreading out of energy towards a state of uniformity. This law can be seen in a cold glass of water that slowly grows warmer until it is the same temperature as the surrounding air. Because of this trend toward equilibrium, the Universe eventually will have a complete lack of structure, consisting of evenly spread atoms of equal warmth. 

But living things, said Shrodinger, are able to postpone this trend. Consider: while you are alive your body maintains its structure, but once you die your body begins to break down through bacterial action and chemical processes. Eventually the atoms of your body are evenly spread out, recycled by the Earth. To die is to submit your body to the entropy of the Universe.

Living things resist entropy by taking in nutrients. This biochemical process of taking in energy for activities and expelling waste byproducts is known as a "metabolism." If metabolism is a sign of life, scientists can look for the waste byproducts of a metabolism when searching for life on other worlds.

 

 

 

  So you see, there is no one organism that scientists agree was the first living organism.  Rather, they have some ideas about what might have been the first living organism based on their theories.  Any suggestion that the discussion itself is evidence against any theory shows a lack of understanding of science.

 

I understand science very well...

 

I also understand want a con job is.

 

The issue is the size of the organism itself, and whether it is all proteins, RNA and proteins, DNA based, or something else.

Without an answer there is no theory. With an answer it will be disproven.

 

 

 

Do you know what the smallest organism today that is not a parasite and can reproduce without a host organism today?  Do you know what size it has?

 

What are the odds against that just popping into existence from random chance?

[TsukinoRei]

If you understand science very well, then you must understand that what you are asking about is not the theory of evolution.  Evolution is a theory intended only to explain the variety of life, not the origins of all life and not the nature of the first living organism. What you are asking about is called abiogenesis, or autogenesis, or spontaneous generation.   There are multiple theories of abiogenesis.  The two theories compliment one another, but evolution is not dependent upon abiogenesis.

 

 

 

 

As if evolution and evolutionary theory were not already confusing enough, many creationists complicate matters even further by promulgating the mistaken idea that evolution is the same as abiogenesis. One common way this is done is to argue that evolution cannot explain how life began while creationism can and, therefore, creationism is superior to evolution.  http://atheism.about.com/od/evolutionabiogenesis/a/evolution.htm

 

 

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

 

 

Scientific hypotheses about the origins of life may be divided into several categories. Most approaches investigate how self-replicating molecules or their components came into existence. For example, the Miller–Urey experiment and similar experiments demonstrated that most amino acids, often called "the building blocks of life", can be racemically synthesized in conditions thought to be similar to those of the early Earth. Several mechanisms have been investigated, including lightning and radiation. Other approaches ("metabolism first" hypotheses) focus on understanding how catalysis in chemical systems in the early Earth might have provided the precursor molecules necessary for self-replication.

 

 

 

Early conditions[edit source | editbeta]

Main article: Timeline of evolution

The Hadean Earth is thought to have had a secondary atmosphere, formed through degassing of the rocks that accumulated from planetesimal impactors. At first it was thought by scientists like Harold Urey that the earth's atmosphere was made up of hydrides—methane, ammonia andwater vapour, and that life began under such reducing conditions, conducive to the formation of organic molecules. However, it is now thought that the early atmosphere, based on today's volcanic evidence, would have contained 60% hydrogen, 20% oxygen (mostly in the form of water vapour), 10% carbon dioxide, 5 to 7% hydrogen sulfide, and smaller amounts of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, free hydrogen, methane and inert gases. As Earth lacked the gravity to hold any molecular hydrogen, this component of the atmosphere was rapidly lost during the Hadean period. Solution of the carbon dioxide in water is thought to have made the seas slightly acidic, with a pH of about 5.5.^[24]

Morse and MacKenzie have suggested that oceans may have appeared first in the Hadean eon, as soon as two hundred million years (200 Ma) after the Earth was formed, in a hot 100 °C (212 °F) reducing environment, and that the pH of about 5.8 rose rapidly towards neutral.^[25] This has been supported by Wilde^[26] who has pushed the date of the zircon crystals found in the metamorphosed quartzite of Mount Narryer in Western Australia, previously thought to be 4.1–4.2 Ga, to 4.404 Ga. This means that oceans and continental crust existed within 150 Ma of Earth's formation. Rosing et al.,^[27] suggest that between 4.4 and 4.3 Ga, the Earth was a water world, with little if any continental crust, with an extremely turbulent atmosphere and a hydrosphere subject to high UV, from a T Tauri sun and cosmic radiation and continued bolide impact.

As a result, the Hadean environment was one highly hazardous to modern life. Frequent collisions with large objects, up to 500 kilometres (310 mi) in diameter, would have been sufficient to vaporise the ocean within a few months of impact, with hot steam mixed with rock vapour leading to high altitude clouds completely covering the planet. After a few months the height of these clouds would have begun to decrease but the cloud base would still have been elevated for about the next thousand years. After that, it would have begun to rain at low altitude. For another two thousand years rains would slowly have drawn down the height of the clouds, returning the oceans to their original depth only 3,000 years after the impact event.^[28]

Between 3.8 and 4.1 Ga, changes in the orbits of the gaseous giant planets may have caused a late heavy bombardment that pockmarked the Moon and the other inner planets (Mercury, Mars, and presumably Earth and Venus). This would likely have sterilized the planet, had life appeared before that time. Geologically the Hadean Earth would have been far more active than at any other time in its history. Studies of meteorites suggests that radioactive isotopes such as aluminium-26 with a half-life of 7.17×10⁵ years, and potassium-40 with a half-life of 1.250×10⁹ years, isotopes mainly produced in supernovae, were much more common, with the result that the earth was more than 96% more radioactive than it is today^{[citation needed]}. Coupled with internal heating as a result of gravitational sorting between the core and the mantle generated a great deal ofmantle convection, with the probable result that there would have been many more smaller very active tectonic plates, than in modern times.

By examining the time interval between such devastating environmental events, the time interval when life might first have come into existence can be found for different early environments. The study by Maher and Stevenson shows that if the deep marine hydrothermal setting provides a suitable site for the origin of life, abiogenesis could have happened as early as 4.0 to 4.2 Ga, whereas if it occurred at the surface of the Earth abiogenesis could only have occurred between 3.7 and 4.0 Ga.^[29]

Other research suggests a colder start to life. Work by Leslie Orgel and colleagues on the synthesis of purines has shown that freezing temperatures are advantageous, due to the concentrating effect for key precursors such as hydrogen cyanide.^[30] Research by Stanley Miller and colleagues suggested that while adenine and guanine require freezing conditions for synthesis, cytosine and uracil may require boiling temperatures.^[31] Research by the Miller group notes the formation of seven different amino acids and 11 types of nucleobases in ice when ammonia andcyanide were left in a freezer from 1972 to 1997.^[32][33] This article also describes research by Christof Biebricher showing the formation of RNA molecules 400 bases long under freezing conditions using an RNA template, a single-strand chain of RNA that guides the formation of a new strand of RNA. As that new RNA strand grows, it adheres to the template.^[34] The explanation given for the unusual speed of these reactions at such a low temperature is eutectic freezing. As an ice crystal forms, it stays pure: only molecules of water join the growing crystal, while impurities like salt or cyanide are excluded. These impurities become crowded in microscopic pockets of liquid within the ice, and this crowding causes the molecules to collide more often.

Evidence of the early appearance of life comes from the Isua supercrustal belt in Western Greenland and from similar formations in the nearby Akilia Island. Carbon entering into rock formations has a ratio of carbon-13 (¹³C) to carbon-12 (¹²C) of about −5.5 (in units of δ¹³C), where because of a preferential biotic uptake of ¹²C, biomass has a δ¹³C of between −20 and −30. These isotopic fingerprints are preserved in the sediments, and Mojzis has used this technique to suggest that life existed on the planet already by 3.85 billion years ago.^[35] Lazcano and Miller (1994) suggest that the rapidity of the evolution of life is dictated by the rate of recirculating water through mid-ocean submarine vents. Complete recirculation takes 10 million years, thus any organic compounds produced by then would be altered or destroyed by temperatures exceeding 300 °C (572 °F). They estimate that the development of a 100 kilobase genome of a DNA/protein primitive heterotroph into a 7000 gene filamentous cyanobacterium would have required only 7 Ma.^[36] Chemist Christian de Duve argues that the determination of chemistry means that "life has to emerge quickly ... Chemical reactions happen quickly or not at all; if any reaction takes a millennium to complete then the chances are all the reagents will simply dissipate or breakdown in the meantime, unless they are replenished by other faster reactions".^[37][38]

 

 

 

Fox's experiments[edit source | editbeta]

In the 1950s and 1960s, Sidney W. Fox studied the spontaneous formation of peptide structures under conditions that might plausibly have existed early in Earth's history. He demonstrated that amino acids could spontaneously form small peptides. These amino acids and small peptides could be encouraged to form closed spherical membranes, called proteinoid microspheres, which show many of the basic characteristics of 'life'.^[55]

 

 

Another possible answer to this polymerization conundrum was provided in the 1980s by the German chemist Günter Wächtershäuser, encouraged and supported by Karl R. Popper,^[63][64][65] in his iron–sulfur world theory. In this theory, he postulated the evolution of (bio)chemical pathways as fundamentals of the evolution of life. Moreover, he presented a consistent system of tracing today's biochemistry back to ancestral reactions that provide alternative pathways to the synthesis of organic building blocks from simple gaseous compounds.

In contrast to the classical Miller experiments, which depend on external sources of energy (such as simulated lightning or ultraviolet irradiation), "Wächtershäuser systems" come with a built-in source of energy, sulfides of iron and other minerals (e.g. pyrite). The energy released from redox reactions of these metal sulfides is not only available for the synthesis of organic molecules, but also for the formation of oligomers and polymers. It is therefore hypothesized that such systems may be able to evolve into autocatalytic sets of self-replicating, metabolically active entities that would predate the life forms known today.

The experiment produced a relatively small yield of dipeptides (0.4% to 12.4%) and a smaller yield of tripeptides (0.10%) but the authors also noted that: "under these same conditions dipeptides hydrolysed rapidly."^[66]

 

 

 

Geoffrey W. Hoffmann, a student of Eigen, contributed to the concept of life involving both replication and metabolism emerging from catalytic noise. His contributions included showing that an early sloppy translation machinery can be stable against an error catastrophe of the type that had been envisaged as problematical by Leslie Orgel ("Orgel's paradox")^[60][61] and calculations regarding the occurrence of a set of required catalytic activities together with the exclusion of catalytic activities that would be disruptive. This is called the stochastic theory of the origin of life.^[62]

 

 

 

The Zn-World (Zinc world) theory of Armen Mulkidjanian ^[67] is an extension of Wächtershäuser's pyrite hypothesis. Wächtershäuser based his theory of the initial chemical processes leading to informational molecules (i.e. RNA, peptides) on a regular mesh of electric charges at the surface of pyrite that may have made the primeval polymerization thermodynamically more favourable by attracting reactants and arranging them appropriately relative to each other.^[68] The Zn-World theory specifies and differentiates further.^[67][69] Hydrothermal fluids rich in H₂S interacting with cold primordial ocean (or "Darwin pond") water leads to the precipitation of metal sulfide particles. Oceanic vent systems and other hydrothermal systems have a zonal structure reflected in ancient volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits (VMS) of hydrothermal origin. They reach many kilometers in diameter and date back to the Archean eon. Most abundant are pyrite (FeS₂), chalcopyrite (CuFeS₂), andsphalerite (ZnS), with additions of galena (PbS) and alabandite (MnS). ZnS and MnS have a unique ability to store radiation energy, e.g. provided by UV light. Since during the relevant time window of the origins of replicating molecules the primordial atmospheric pressure was high enough (> 100 bar) to precipitate ZnS near the earth's surface and UV irradiation was 10 to 100 times more intense than now, the unique photosynthetic properties mediated by ZnS provided just the right energy conditions to energize the synthesis of informational and metabolic molecules and the selection of photostable nucleobases.

The Zn-World theory has been further filled out with experimental and theoretical evidence for the ionic constitution of the interior of the first proto-cells before Archea, Eubacteria and Proto-Eukarya evolved. Archibald Maccallum noted the resemblance of organismal fluids such as blood, lymph to seawater;^[70] however, the inorganic composition of all cells differ from that of modern sea water, which led Mulkidjanian and colleagues to reconstruct the "hatcheries" of the first cells combining geochemical analysis with phylogenomic scrutiny of the inorganic ion requirements of universal components of modern cells. The authors conclude that ubiquitous, and by inference primordial, proteins and functional systems show affinity to and functional requirement for K⁺, Zn²⁺, Mn²⁺, and phosphate. Geochemical reconstruction shows that the ionic composition conducive to the origin of cells could not have existed in what we today call marine settings but is compatible with emissions of vapor-dominated zones of what we today call inland geothermal systems. Under the anoxic, CO₂-dominated primordial atmosphere, the chemistry of water condensates and exhalations near geothermal fields would resemble the internal milieu of modern cells. Therefore, the precellular stages of evolution may have taken place in shallow "Darwin-ponds" lined with porous silicate minerals mixed with metal sulfides and enriched in K⁺, Zn²⁺, and phosphorus compounds.^[71][72]

 

 

From a thermodynamic perspective of the origin of life, springs the ultraviolet and temperature-assisted replication (UVTAR) model. Karo Michaelian of the National Autonomous University of Mexico points out that any model for the origin of life must take into account the fact that life is an irreversible thermodynamic process which arises and persists because it produces entropy. Entropy production is not incidental to the process of life, but rather the fundamental reason for its existence. Present day life augments the entropy production of Earth by catalysing the water cycle through evapotranspiration.^[76][77] Michaelian argues that if the thermodynamic function of life today is to produce entropy through coupling with the water cycle, then this probably was its function at its very beginnings. It turns out that both RNA and DNA when in water solution are very strong absorbers and extremely rapid dissipaters of ultraviolet light within the 200–300 nm wavelength range, which is that part of the sun's spectrum that could have penetrated the dense prebiotic atmosphere. Cnossen et al.^[78] have shown that the amount of ultraviolet (UV) light reaching the Earth's surface in the Archean eon could have been up to 31 orders of magnitude greater than it is today at 260 nm where RNA and DNA absorb most strongly. Absorption and dissipation of UV light by the organic molecules at the Archean ocean surface would have significantly increased the temperature of the surface skin layer and led to enhanced evaporation and thus to have augmented the primitive water cycle. Since absorption and dissipation of high energy photons is an entropy producing process, Michaelian argues that non-equilbrium abiogenic synthesis of RNA and DNA utilizing UV light^[79] would have been thermodynamically favored.

A simple mechanism that could explain the replication of RNA and DNA without resort to the use of enzymes could also be provided within the same thermodynamic framework by assuming that life arose when the temperature of the primitive seas had cooled to somewhat below thedenaturing temperature of RNA or DNA (based on the ratio of ¹⁸O/¹⁶O found in cherts of the Barberton greenstone belt of South Africa of about 3.5 to 3.2 Ga., surface temperatures are predicted to have been around 70±15 °C,^[80] close to RNA or DNA denaturing temperatures). During the night, the surface water temperature would drop below the denaturing temperature and single strand RNA/DNA could act as a template for the formation of double strand RNA/DNA. During the daylight hours, RNA and DNA would absorb UV light and convert this directly to heat the ocean surface, thereby raising the local temperature enough to allow for denaturing of RNA and DNA. The copying process would have been repeated with each diurnal cycle.^[81][82] Such a temperature assisted mechanism of replication bears similarity to polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a routine laboratory procedure employed to multiply DNA segments. Michaelian suggests that the traditional origin of life research, that expects to describe the emergence of life from near-equilibrium conditions, is erroneous and that non-equilibrium conditions must be considered, in particular, the importance of entropy production to the emergence of life.

Since denaturation would be most probable in the late afternoon when the Archean sea surface temperature would be highest, and since late afternoon submarine sunlight is somewhat circularly polarized, the homochirality of the organic molecules of life can also be explained within the proposed thermodynamic framework.^[83][84]

 

 

 

ome process in chemical evolution must account for the origin of homochirality, i.e. all building blocks in living organisms having the same "handedness" (amino acids being left-handed, nucleic acid sugars (ribose and deoxyribose) being right-handed, and chiral phosphoglycerides). Chiral molecules can be synthesized, but in the absence of a chiral source or a chiral catalyst, they are formed in a 50/50 mixture of both enantiomers. This is called a racemic mixture. Clark has suggested that homochirality may have started in space, as the studies of the amino acids on theMurchison meteorite showed L-alanine to be more than twice as frequent as its D form, and L-glutamic acid was more than 3 times prevalent than its D counterpart. It is suggested that polarised light has the power to destroy one enantiomer within the proto-planetary disk. Noyes^[85] showed that beta decay caused the breakdown of D-leucine, in a racemic mixture, and that the presence of ¹⁴C, present in larger amounts in organic chemicals in the early Earth environment, could have been the cause. Robert M. Hazen reports upon experiments conducted in which various chiral crystal surfaces act as sites for possible concentration and assembly of chiral monomer units into macromolecules.^[86] Once established, chirality would be selected for.^[87] Work with organic compounds found on meteorites tends to suggest that chirality is a characteristic of abiogenic synthesis, as amino acids show a left-handed bias, whereas sugars show a predominantly right-handed bias.^[88]

 

While features of self-organization and self-replication are often considered the hallmark of living systems, there are many instances of abiotic molecules exhibiting such characteristics under proper conditions. For example Martin and Russell show that physical compartmentation by cell membranes from the environment and self-organization of self-contained redox reactions are the most conserved attributes of living things, and they argue therefore that inorganic matter with such attributes would be life's most likely last common ancestor.^[89] Later Palasek showed that self-assembly of RNA molecules can occur spontaneously due to physical factors in hydrothermal vents.^[90]

Virus self-assembly within host cells has implications for the study of the origin of life,^[91] as it lends further credence to the hypothesis that life could have started as self-assembling organic molecules.^[92][93]

 

The question "How do simple organic molecules form a protocell?" is largely unanswered but there are many hypotheses. Some of these postulate the early appearance of nucleic acids ("genes-first") whereas others postulate the evolution of biochemical reactions and pathways first ("metabolism-first"). Recently, trends are emerging to create hybrid models that combine aspects of both.

Researcher Martin Hanczyc supports the idea of a gradient between life and non-life (i.e. there is no simple line between the two). He thinks that building simple protocells, in the lab, is one of the first steps towards understanding more complex cells, including those that may have later evolved into complex life. Hanczyc says that living cells often consist of somewhere around 1,000,000 types of molecules, whereas his labs are first aiming at creating lifelike systems using around 10 molecules. His protocells display behaviors even simpler than those displayed by things like viruses (e.g. only basic motion, dividing and combining cell walls, and so on).^[94] These lifelike behaviors are visible in the short film Protocell Circus by Rachel Armstrong and Michael Simon Toon.^[95][96][97]

 

^{Here is some actual math.}

 

 

Deep sea vent hypothesis[edit source | editbeta]

The deep sea vent, or alkaline hydrothermal vent, theory for the origin of life on Earth posits that life may have begun at submarine hydrothermal vents, where hydrogen-rich fluids emerge from below the sea floor, as a result of serpentization of ultra mafic olivine with sea water and a pH interface with carbon dioxide-rich ocean water. Sustained chemical energy in such systems is derived from redox reactions, in which electron donors, such as molecular hydrogen, react with electron acceptors, such as carbon dioxide (see iron-sulfur world theory).These are highly exothermic reactions.

Reaction 1a:
Fayalite + water → magnetite + aqueous silica + hydrogen

3Fe₂SiO₄ + 2H₂O → 2Fe₃O₄ + 3SiO₂ + 2H₂

Reaction 1b:
Forsterite + aqueous silica → serpentine

3Mg₂SiO₄ + SiO₂ + 4H₂O → 2Mg₃Si₂O₅(OH)₄

Reaction 1c:
Forsterite + water → serpentine + brucite

2Mg₂SiO₄ + 3H₂O → Mg₃Si₂O₅(OH)₄ + Mg(OH)₂

Reaction 1c describes the hydration of olivine with water only to yield serpentine and Mg(OH)₂ (brucite). Serpentine is stable at high pH in the presence of brucite like calcium silicate hydrate, (C-S-H) phases formed along with portlandite (Ca(OH)₂) in hardened Portland cement paste after the hydration of belite (Ca₂SiO₄), the artificial calcium equivalent of forsterite.

Analogy of reaction 1c with belite hydration in ordinary Portland cement:
Belite + water → C-S-H phase + portlandite

2 Ca₂SiO₄ + 4 H₂O → 3 CaO · 2 SiO₂ · 3 H₂O + Ca(OH)₂

Mike Russell demonstrated that alkaline vents created an abiogenic proton-motive force chemiosmotic gradient,^[98] in which conditions are ideal for an abiogenic hatchery for life. Their microscopic compartments "provide a natural means of concentrating organic molecules", composed of iron-sulfur minerals such as mackinawite, endowed these mineral cells with the catalytic properties envisaged by Günter Wächtershäuser.^[99] This movement of ions across the membrane depends on a combination of two factors:

1. Diffusion force caused by concentration gradient - all particles including ions tend to diffuse from higher concentration to lower.
2. Electrostatic force caused by electrical potential gradient - cations like protons H⁺ tend to diffuse down the electrical potential, anions in the opposite direction.

These two gradients taken together can be expressed as an electrochemical gradient, providing energy for abiogenic synthesis. The proton-motive force (PMF) can be described as the measure of the potential energy stored as a combination of proton and voltage gradients across a membrane (differences in proton concentration and electrical potential). In 1978, for the discovery of the PMF, Peter Mitchell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.^[100]

 

And standing on the work of these scientists and others like them, scientists are manufacturing life in laboratory conditions;

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7745868/Scientist-Craig-Venter-creates-life-for-first-time-in-laboratory-sparking-debate-about-playing-god.html

 

Dr Craig Venter, a multi-millionaire pioneer in genetics, and his team have managed to make a completely new "synthetic" life form from a mix of chemicals.

They manufactured a new chromosome from artificial DNA in a test tube, then transferred it into an empty cell and watched it multiply – the very definition of being alive.

The man-made single cell "creature", which is a modified version of one of the simplest bacteria on earth, proves that the technology works.

Now Dr Venter believes organism, nicknamed Synthia, will pave the way for more complex creatures that can transform environmental waste into clean fuel, vaccinate against disease and soak up pollution.

But his development has also triggered debate over the ethics of "playing god" and the dangers of the new technology could pose in terms of biological hazards and warfare.

 

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/ribonucleotides/

 

 

Researchers synthesized the basic ingredients of RNA, a molecule from which the simplest self-replicating structures are made. Until now, they couldn’t explain how these ingredients might have formed.

“It’s like molecular choreography, where the molecules choreograph their own behavior,” said organic chemist John Sutherland of the University of Manchester, co-author of a study in Nature Wednesday.

RNA is now found in living cells, where it carries information between genes and protein-manufacturing cellular components. Scientists think RNA existed early in Earth’s history, providing a necessary intermediate platform between pre-biotic chemicals and DNA, its double-stranded, more-stable descendant.

However, though researchers have been able to show how RNA’s component molecules, called ribonucleotides, could assemble into RNA, their many attempts to synthesize these ribonucleotides have failed. No matter how they combined the ingredients — a sugar, a phosphate, and one of four different nitrogenous molecules, or nucleobases — ribonucleotides just wouldn’t form.

Sutherland’s team took a different approach in what Harvard molecular biologist Jack Szostak called a “synthetic tour de force” in an accompanying commentary in Nature.

“By changing the way we mix the ingredients together, we managed to make ribonucleotides,” said Sutherland. “The chemistry works very effectively from simple precursors, and the conditions required are not distinct from what one might imagine took place on the early Earth.”

 

Like other would-be nucleotide synthesizers, Sutherland’s team included phosphate in their mix, but rather than adding it to sugars and nucleobases, they started with an array of even simpler molecules that were probably also in Earth’s primordial ooze.

They mixed the molecules in water, heated the solution, then allowed it to evaporate, leaving behind a residue of hybrid, half-sugar, half-nucleobase molecules. To this residue they again added water, heated it, allowed it evaporate, and then irradiated it.

At each stage of the cycle, the resulting molecules were more complex. At the final stage, Sutherland’s team added phosphate. “Remarkably, it transformed into the ribonucleotide!” said Sutherland.

Edited August 10, 2013 by TsukinoRei

[MarkNigro]

 

If you understand science very well, then you must understand that what you are asking about is not the theory of evolution.  Evolution is a theory intended only to explain the variety of life, not the origins of all life and not the nature of the first living organism. What you are asking about is called abiogenesis, or autogenesis, or spontaneous generation.   There are multiple theories of abiogenesis.  The two theories compliment one another, but evolution is not dependent upon abiogenesis.

 

 

 

 

As if evolution and evolutionary theory were not already confusing enough, many creationists complicate matters even further by promulgating the mistaken idea that evolution is the same as abiogenesis. One common way this is done is to argue that evolution cannot explain how life began while creationism can and, therefore, creationism is superior to evolution.  http://atheism.about.com/od/evolutionabiogenesis/a/evolution.htm

 

 

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

 

 

Scientific hypotheses about the origins of life may be divided into several categories. Most approaches investigate how self-replicating molecules or their components came into existence. For example, the Miller–Urey experiment and similar experiments demonstrated that most amino acids, often called "the building blocks of life", can be racemically synthesized in conditions thought to be similar to those of the early Earth. Several mechanisms have been investigated, including lightning and radiation. Other approaches ("metabolism first" hypotheses) focus on understanding how catalysis in chemical systems in the early Earth might have provided the precursor molecules necessary for self-replication.

 

 

 

Early conditions[edit source | editbeta]

Main article: Timeline of evolution

The Hadean Earth is thought to have had a secondary atmosphere, formed through degassing of the rocks that accumulated from planetesimal impactors. At first it was thought by scientists like Harold Urey that the earth's atmosphere was made up of hydrides—methane, ammonia andwater vapour, and that life began under such reducing conditions, conducive to the formation of organic molecules. However, it is now thought that the early atmosphere, based on today's volcanic evidence, would have contained 60% hydrogen, 20% oxygen (mostly in the form of water vapour), 10% carbon dioxide, 5 to 7% hydrogen sulfide, and smaller amounts of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, free hydrogen, methane and inert gases. As Earth lacked the gravity to hold any molecular hydrogen, this component of the atmosphere was rapidly lost during the Hadean period. Solution of the carbon dioxide in water is thought to have made the seas slightly acidic, with a pH of about 5.5.^[24]

Morse and MacKenzie have suggested that oceans may have appeared first in the Hadean eon, as soon as two hundred million years (200 Ma) after the Earth was formed, in a hot 100 °C (212 °F) reducing environment, and that the pH of about 5.8 rose rapidly towards neutral.^[25] This has been supported by Wilde^[26] who has pushed the date of the zircon crystals found in the metamorphosed quartzite of Mount Narryer in Western Australia, previously thought to be 4.1–4.2 Ga, to 4.404 Ga. This means that oceans and continental crust existed within 150 Ma of Earth's formation. Rosing et al.,^[27] suggest that between 4.4 and 4.3 Ga, the Earth was a water world, with little if any continental crust, with an extremely turbulent atmosphere and a hydrosphere subject to high UV, from a T Tauri sun and cosmic radiation and continued bolide impact.

As a result, the Hadean environment was one highly hazardous to modern life. Frequent collisions with large objects, up to 500 kilometres (310 mi) in diameter, would have been sufficient to vaporise the ocean within a few months of impact, with hot steam mixed with rock vapour leading to high altitude clouds completely covering the planet. After a few months the height of these clouds would have begun to decrease but the cloud base would still have been elevated for about the next thousand years. After that, it would have begun to rain at low altitude. For another two thousand years rains would slowly have drawn down the height of the clouds, returning the oceans to their original depth only 3,000 years after the impact event.^[28]

Between 3.8 and 4.1 Ga, changes in the orbits of the gaseous giant planets may have caused a late heavy bombardment that pockmarked the Moon and the other inner planets (Mercury, Mars, and presumably Earth and Venus). This would likely have sterilized the planet, had life appeared before that time. Geologically the Hadean Earth would have been far more active than at any other time in its history. Studies of meteorites suggests that radioactive isotopes such as aluminium-26 with a half-life of 7.17×10⁵ years, and potassium-40 with a half-life of 1.250×10⁹ years, isotopes mainly produced in supernovae, were much more common, with the result that the earth was more than 96% more radioactive than it is today^{[citation needed]}. Coupled with internal heating as a result of gravitational sorting between the core and the mantle generated a great deal ofmantle convection, with the probable result that there would have been many more smaller very active tectonic plates, than in modern times.

By examining the time interval between such devastating environmental events, the time interval when life might first have come into existence can be found for different early environments. The study by Maher and Stevenson shows that if the deep marine hydrothermal setting provides a suitable site for the origin of life, abiogenesis could have happened as early as 4.0 to 4.2 Ga, whereas if it occurred at the surface of the Earth abiogenesis could only have occurred between 3.7 and 4.0 Ga.^[29]

Other research suggests a colder start to life. Work by Leslie Orgel and colleagues on the synthesis of purines has shown that freezing temperatures are advantageous, due to the concentrating effect for key precursors such as hydrogen cyanide.^[30] Research by Stanley Miller and colleagues suggested that while adenine and guanine require freezing conditions for synthesis, cytosine and uracil may require boiling temperatures.^[31] Research by the Miller group notes the formation of seven different amino acids and 11 types of nucleobases in ice when ammonia andcyanide were left in a freezer from 1972 to 1997.^[32][33] This article also describes research by Christof Biebricher showing the formation of RNA molecules 400 bases long under freezing conditions using an RNA template, a single-strand chain of RNA that guides the formation of a new strand of RNA. As that new RNA strand grows, it adheres to the template.^[34] The explanation given for the unusual speed of these reactions at such a low temperature is eutectic freezing. As an ice crystal forms, it stays pure: only molecules of water join the growing crystal, while impurities like salt or cyanide are excluded. These impurities become crowded in microscopic pockets of liquid within the ice, and this crowding causes the molecules to collide more often.

Evidence of the early appearance of life comes from the Isua supercrustal belt in Western Greenland and from similar formations in the nearby Akilia Island. Carbon entering into rock formations has a ratio of carbon-13 (¹³C) to carbon-12 (¹²C) of about −5.5 (in units of δ¹³C), where because of a preferential biotic uptake of ¹²C, biomass has a δ¹³C of between −20 and −30. These isotopic fingerprints are preserved in the sediments, and Mojzis has used this technique to suggest that life existed on the planet already by 3.85 billion years ago.^[35] Lazcano and Miller (1994) suggest that the rapidity of the evolution of life is dictated by the rate of recirculating water through mid-ocean submarine vents. Complete recirculation takes 10 million years, thus any organic compounds produced by then would be altered or destroyed by temperatures exceeding 300 °C (572 °F). They estimate that the development of a 100 kilobase genome of a DNA/protein primitive heterotroph into a 7000 gene filamentous cyanobacterium would have required only 7 Ma.^[36] Chemist Christian de Duve argues that the determination of chemistry means that "life has to emerge quickly ... Chemical reactions happen quickly or not at all; if any reaction takes a millennium to complete then the chances are all the reagents will simply dissipate or breakdown in the meantime, unless they are replenished by other faster reactions".^[37][38]

 

 

 

Fox's experiments[edit source | editbeta]

In the 1950s and 1960s, Sidney W. Fox studied the spontaneous formation of peptide structures under conditions that might plausibly have existed early in Earth's history. He demonstrated that amino acids could spontaneously form small peptides. These amino acids and small peptides could be encouraged to form closed spherical membranes, called proteinoid microspheres, which show many of the basic characteristics of 'life'.^[55]

 

 

Another possible answer to this polymerization conundrum was provided in the 1980s by the German chemist Günter Wächtershäuser, encouraged and supported by Karl R. Popper,^[63][64][65] in his iron–sulfur world theory. In this theory, he postulated the evolution of (bio)chemical pathways as fundamentals of the evolution of life. Moreover, he presented a consistent system of tracing today's biochemistry back to ancestral reactions that provide alternative pathways to the synthesis of organic building blocks from simple gaseous compounds.

In contrast to the classical Miller experiments, which depend on external sources of energy (such as simulated lightning or ultraviolet irradiation), "Wächtershäuser systems" come with a built-in source of energy, sulfides of iron and other minerals (e.g. pyrite). The energy released from redox reactions of these metal sulfides is not only available for the synthesis of organic molecules, but also for the formation of oligomers and polymers. It is therefore hypothesized that such systems may be able to evolve into autocatalytic sets of self-replicating, metabolically active entities that would predate the life forms known today.

The experiment produced a relatively small yield of dipeptides (0.4% to 12.4%) and a smaller yield of tripeptides (0.10%) but the authors also noted that: "under these same conditions dipeptides hydrolysed rapidly."^[66]

 

 

 

Geoffrey W. Hoffmann, a student of Eigen, contributed to the concept of life involving both replication and metabolism emerging from catalytic noise. His contributions included showing that an early sloppy translation machinery can be stable against an error catastrophe of the type that had been envisaged as problematical by Leslie Orgel ("Orgel's paradox")^[60][61] and calculations regarding the occurrence of a set of required catalytic activities together with the exclusion of catalytic activities that would be disruptive. This is called the stochastic theory of the origin of life.^[62]

 

 

 

The Zn-World (Zinc world) theory of Armen Mulkidjanian ^[67] is an extension of Wächtershäuser's pyrite hypothesis. Wächtershäuser based his theory of the initial chemical processes leading to informational molecules (i.e. RNA, peptides) on a regular mesh of electric charges at the surface of pyrite that may have made the primeval polymerization thermodynamically more favourable by attracting reactants and arranging them appropriately relative to each other.^[68] The Zn-World theory specifies and differentiates further.^[67][69] Hydrothermal fluids rich in H₂S interacting with cold primordial ocean (or "Darwin pond") water leads to the precipitation of metal sulfide particles. Oceanic vent systems and other hydrothermal systems have a zonal structure reflected in ancient volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits (VMS) of hydrothermal origin. They reach many kilometers in diameter and date back to the Archean eon. Most abundant are pyrite (FeS₂), chalcopyrite (CuFeS₂), andsphalerite (ZnS), with additions of galena (PbS) and alabandite (MnS). ZnS and MnS have a unique ability to store radiation energy, e.g. provided by UV light. Since during the relevant time window of the origins of replicating molecules the primordial atmospheric pressure was high enough (> 100 bar) to precipitate ZnS near the earth's surface and UV irradiation was 10 to 100 times more intense than now, the unique photosynthetic properties mediated by ZnS provided just the right energy conditions to energize the synthesis of informational and metabolic molecules and the selection of photostable nucleobases.

The Zn-World theory has been further filled out with experimental and theoretical evidence for the ionic constitution of the interior of the first proto-cells before Archea, Eubacteria and Proto-Eukarya evolved. Archibald Maccallum noted the resemblance of organismal fluids such as blood, lymph to seawater;^[70] however, the inorganic composition of all cells differ from that of modern sea water, which led Mulkidjanian and colleagues to reconstruct the "hatcheries" of the first cells combining geochemical analysis with phylogenomic scrutiny of the inorganic ion requirements of universal components of modern cells. The authors conclude that ubiquitous, and by inference primordial, proteins and functional systems show affinity to and functional requirement for K⁺, Zn²⁺, Mn²⁺, and phosphate. Geochemical reconstruction shows that the ionic composition conducive to the origin of cells could not have existed in what we today call marine settings but is compatible with emissions of vapor-dominated zones of what we today call inland geothermal systems. Under the anoxic, CO₂-dominated primordial atmosphere, the chemistry of water condensates and exhalations near geothermal fields would resemble the internal milieu of modern cells. Therefore, the precellular stages of evolution may have taken place in shallow "Darwin-ponds" lined with porous silicate minerals mixed with metal sulfides and enriched in K⁺, Zn²⁺, and phosphorus compounds.^[71][72]

 

 

From a thermodynamic perspective of the origin of life, springs the ultraviolet and temperature-assisted replication (UVTAR) model. Karo Michaelian of the National Autonomous University of Mexico points out that any model for the origin of life must take into account the fact that life is an irreversible thermodynamic process which arises and persists because it produces entropy. Entropy production is not incidental to the process of life, but rather the fundamental reason for its existence. Present day life augments the entropy production of Earth by catalysing the water cycle through evapotranspiration.^[76][77] Michaelian argues that if the thermodynamic function of life today is to produce entropy through coupling with the water cycle, then this probably was its function at its very beginnings. It turns out that both RNA and DNA when in water solution are very strong absorbers and extremely rapid dissipaters of ultraviolet light within the 200–300 nm wavelength range, which is that part of the sun's spectrum that could have penetrated the dense prebiotic atmosphere. Cnossen et al.^[78] have shown that the amount of ultraviolet (UV) light reaching the Earth's surface in the Archean eon could have been up to 31 orders of magnitude greater than it is today at 260 nm where RNA and DNA absorb most strongly. Absorption and dissipation of UV light by the organic molecules at the Archean ocean surface would have significantly increased the temperature of the surface skin layer and led to enhanced evaporation and thus to have augmented the primitive water cycle. Since absorption and dissipation of high energy photons is an entropy producing process, Michaelian argues that non-equilbrium abiogenic synthesis of RNA and DNA utilizing UV light^[79] would have been thermodynamically favored.

A simple mechanism that could explain the replication of RNA and DNA without resort to the use of enzymes could also be provided within the same thermodynamic framework by assuming that life arose when the temperature of the primitive seas had cooled to somewhat below thedenaturing temperature of RNA or DNA (based on the ratio of ¹⁸O/¹⁶O found in cherts of the Barberton greenstone belt of South Africa of about 3.5 to 3.2 Ga., surface temperatures are predicted to have been around 70±15 °C,^[80] close to RNA or DNA denaturing temperatures). During the night, the surface water temperature would drop below the denaturing temperature and single strand RNA/DNA could act as a template for the formation of double strand RNA/DNA. During the daylight hours, RNA and DNA would absorb UV light and convert this directly to heat the ocean surface, thereby raising the local temperature enough to allow for denaturing of RNA and DNA. The copying process would have been repeated with each diurnal cycle.^[81][82] Such a temperature assisted mechanism of replication bears similarity to polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a routine laboratory procedure employed to multiply DNA segments. Michaelian suggests that the traditional origin of life research, that expects to describe the emergence of life from near-equilibrium conditions, is erroneous and that non-equilibrium conditions must be considered, in particular, the importance of entropy production to the emergence of life.

Since denaturation would be most probable in the late afternoon when the Archean sea surface temperature would be highest, and since late afternoon submarine sunlight is somewhat circularly polarized, the homochirality of the organic molecules of life can also be explained within the proposed thermodynamic framework.^[83][84]

 

 

 

ome process in chemical evolution must account for the origin of homochirality, i.e. all building blocks in living organisms having the same "handedness" (amino acids being left-handed, nucleic acid sugars (ribose and deoxyribose) being right-handed, and chiral phosphoglycerides). Chiral molecules can be synthesized, but in the absence of a chiral source or a chiral catalyst, they are formed in a 50/50 mixture of both enantiomers. This is called a racemic mixture. Clark has suggested that homochirality may have started in space, as the studies of the amino acids on theMurchison meteorite showed L-alanine to be more than twice as frequent as its D form, and L-glutamic acid was more than 3 times prevalent than its D counterpart. It is suggested that polarised light has the power to destroy one enantiomer within the proto-planetary disk. Noyes^[85] showed that beta decay caused the breakdown of D-leucine, in a racemic mixture, and that the presence of ¹⁴C, present in larger amounts in organic chemicals in the early Earth environment, could have been the cause. Robert M. Hazen reports upon experiments conducted in which various chiral crystal surfaces act as sites for possible concentration and assembly of chiral monomer units into macromolecules.^[86] Once established, chirality would be selected for.^[87] Work with organic compounds found on meteorites tends to suggest that chirality is a characteristic of abiogenic synthesis, as amino acids show a left-handed bias, whereas sugars show a predominantly right-handed bias.^[88]

 

While features of self-organization and self-replication are often considered the hallmark of living systems, there are many instances of abiotic molecules exhibiting such characteristics under proper conditions. For example Martin and Russell show that physical compartmentation by cell membranes from the environment and self-organization of self-contained redox reactions are the most conserved attributes of living things, and they argue therefore that inorganic matter with such attributes would be life's most likely last common ancestor.^[89] Later Palasek showed that self-assembly of RNA molecules can occur spontaneously due to physical factors in hydrothermal vents.^[90]

Virus self-assembly within host cells has implications for the study of the origin of life,^[91] as it lends further credence to the hypothesis that life could have started as self-assembling organic molecules.^[92][93]

 

The question "How do simple organic molecules form a protocell?" is largely unanswered but there are many hypotheses. Some of these postulate the early appearance of nucleic acids ("genes-first") whereas others postulate the evolution of biochemical reactions and pathways first ("metabolism-first"). Recently, trends are emerging to create hybrid models that combine aspects of both.

Researcher Martin Hanczyc supports the idea of a gradient between life and non-life (i.e. there is no simple line between the two). He thinks that building simple protocells, in the lab, is one of the first steps towards understanding more complex cells, including those that may have later evolved into complex life. Hanczyc says that living cells often consist of somewhere around 1,000,000 types of molecules, whereas his labs are first aiming at creating lifelike systems using around 10 molecules. His protocells display behaviors even simpler than those displayed by things like viruses (e.g. only basic motion, dividing and combining cell walls, and so on).^[94] These lifelike behaviors are visible in the short film Protocell Circus by Rachel Armstrong and Michael Simon Toon.^[95][96][97]

 

^{Here is some actual math.}

 

 

Deep sea vent hypothesis[edit source | editbeta]

The deep sea vent, or alkaline hydrothermal vent, theory for the origin of life on Earth posits that life may have begun at submarine hydrothermal vents, where hydrogen-rich fluids emerge from below the sea floor, as a result of serpentization of ultra mafic olivine with sea water and a pH interface with carbon dioxide-rich ocean water. Sustained chemical energy in such systems is derived from redox reactions, in which electron donors, such as molecular hydrogen, react with electron acceptors, such as carbon dioxide (see iron-sulfur world theory).These are highly exothermic reactions.

Reaction 1a:

Fayalite + water → magnetite + aqueous silica + hydrogen

3Fe₂SiO₄ + 2H₂O → 2Fe₃O₄ + 3SiO₂ + 2H₂

Reaction 1b:

Forsterite + aqueous silica → serpentine

3Mg₂SiO₄ + SiO₂ + 4H₂O → 2Mg₃Si₂O₅(OH)₄

Reaction 1c:

Forsterite + water → serpentine + brucite

2Mg₂SiO₄ + 3H₂O → Mg₃Si₂O₅(OH)₄ + Mg(OH)₂

Reaction 1c describes the hydration of olivine with water only to yield serpentine and Mg(OH)₂ (brucite). Serpentine is stable at high pH in the presence of brucite like calcium silicate hydrate, (C-S-H) phases formed along with portlandite (Ca(OH)₂) in hardened Portland cement paste after the hydration of belite (Ca₂SiO₄), the artificial calcium equivalent of forsterite.

Analogy of reaction 1c with belite hydration in ordinary Portland cement:

Belite + water → C-S-H phase + portlandite

2 Ca₂SiO₄ + 4 H₂O → 3 CaO · 2 SiO₂ · 3 H₂O + Ca(OH)₂

Mike Russell demonstrated that alkaline vents created an abiogenic proton-motive force chemiosmotic gradient,^[98] in which conditions are ideal for an abiogenic hatchery for life. Their microscopic compartments "provide a natural means of concentrating organic molecules", composed of iron-sulfur minerals such as mackinawite, endowed these mineral cells with the catalytic properties envisaged by Günter Wächtershäuser.^[99] This movement of ions across the membrane depends on a combination of two factors:

1. Diffusion force caused by concentration gradient - all particles including ions tend to diffuse from higher concentration to lower.
2. Electrostatic force caused by electrical potential gradient - cations like protons H⁺ tend to diffuse down the electrical potential, anions in the opposite direction.

These two gradients taken together can be expressed as an electrochemical gradient, providing energy for abiogenic synthesis. The proton-motive force (PMF) can be described as the measure of the potential energy stored as a combination of proton and voltage gradients across a membrane (differences in proton concentration and electrical potential). In 1978, for the discovery of the PMF, Peter Mitchell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.^[100]

 

And standing on the work of these scientists and others like them, scientists are manufacturing life in laboratory conditions;

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7745868/Scientist-Craig-Venter-creates-life-for-first-time-in-laboratory-sparking-debate-about-playing-god.html

 

Dr Craig Venter, a multi-millionaire pioneer in genetics, and his team have managed to make a completely new "synthetic" life form from a mix of chemicals.

They manufactured a new chromosome from artificial DNA in a test tube, then transferred it into an empty cell and watched it multiply – the very definition of being alive.

The man-made single cell "creature", which is a modified version of one of the simplest bacteria on earth, proves that the technology works.

Now Dr Venter believes organism, nicknamed Synthia, will pave the way for more complex creatures that can transform environmental waste into clean fuel, vaccinate against disease and soak up pollution.

But his development has also triggered debate over the ethics of "playing god" and the dangers of the new technology could pose in terms of biological hazards and warfare.

 

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/ribonucleotides/

 

 

Researchers synthesized the basic ingredients of RNA, a molecule from which the simplest self-replicating structures are made. Until now, they couldn’t explain how these ingredients might have formed.

“It’s like molecular choreography, where the molecules choreograph their own behavior,” said organic chemist John Sutherland of the University of Manchester, co-author of a study in Nature Wednesday.

RNA is now found in living cells, where it carries information between genes and protein-manufacturing cellular components. Scientists think RNA existed early in Earth’s history, providing a necessary intermediate platform between pre-biotic chemicals and DNA, its double-stranded, more-stable descendant.

However, though researchers have been able to show how RNA’s component molecules, called ribonucleotides, could assemble into RNA, their many attempts to synthesize these ribonucleotides have failed. No matter how they combined the ingredients — a sugar, a phosphate, and one of four different nitrogenous molecules, or nucleobases — ribonucleotides just wouldn’t form.

Sutherland’s team took a different approach in what Harvard molecular biologist Jack Szostak called a “synthetic tour de force” in an accompanying commentary in Nature.

“By changing the way we mix the ingredients together, we managed to make ribonucleotides,” said Sutherland. “The chemistry works very effectively from simple precursors, and the conditions required are not distinct from what one might imagine took place on the early Earth.”

 

Like other would-be nucleotide synthesizers, Sutherland’s team included phosphate in their mix, but rather than adding it to sugars and nucleobases, they started with an array of even simpler molecules that were probably also in Earth’s primordial ooze.

They mixed the molecules in water, heated the solution, then allowed it to evaporate, leaving behind a residue of hybrid, half-sugar, half-nucleobase molecules. To this residue they again added water, heated it, allowed it evaporate, and then irradiated it.

At each stage of the cycle, the resulting molecules were more complex. At the final stage, Sutherland’s team added phosphate. “Remarkably, it transformed into the ribonucleotide!” said Sutherland.

 

I looked over all the information.

 

I do want to thank you for the information.

 

However abiogenesis has to be part of the theory of evolution, since one cannot then account for any life on the earth at all. Most evolutionists run from that like the plague.  

 

The evolution from the first living thing up to mankind is also easily disproven.

 

Miller's experiment does actually is rigged as product is removed into a trap as it appears. 

 

The type of atmosphere in the early earth is speculation. At best it could help produce some amino acids which are racemix.

 

The chaining of some molecules doe not produce anything close to real proteins, RNA, and DNA where not only is the actual sequence of amino acids or nucleotides is important, but an entire creature must also come into existence to protect any evolving chain. 

 

Most of the experiments are in essence controlled experiments developed by intelligent scientists. The environment does not represent the real environment where the first living thing would have come into being.

 

None of the other experiments even comes close to a first living thing.

 

Now here is the next big problem. Without the first living thing known, there is also no way to determine what is the second, third, fourth, etc living thing. 

 

That is why abiogenesis has to be part of the theory of evolution.

 

Again I want to thank you for the information,

Mark

[JDavis]

 

I looked over all the information.

 

 

I do want to thank you for the information.

 

However abiogenesis has to be part of the theory of evolution, since one cannot then account for any life on the earth at all. Most evolutionists run from that like the plague.  

 

 

 

Again I want to thank you for the information,

Mark

 

 

This is just false.  you can say it 100 times and it will still be false.

[MarkNigro]

 

 

I looked over all the information.

 

 

I do want to thank you for the information.

 

However abiogenesis has to be part of the theory of evolution, since one cannot then account for any life on the earth at all. Most evolutionists run from that like the plague.  

 

 

 

Again I want to thank you for the information,

Mark

 

 

This is just false.  you can say it 100 times and it will still be false.

 

I did look at the information.

 

What I got from it was that there is no answer to what the first living creature was.

 

I also now want to discuss one of the great con jobs of evolutionary theory. 

 

Evolutionists want to divide the atoms to mankind evolution into 2 parts. Abiogenesis and then evolution from something to mankind. 

 

Abiogenesis would go from atoms to the first creature. But the other half must go from the first creature to mankind. So whether you divide it into 2 parts, the first creature must be known.

 

Now here is the great con job. Evolutionist want to teach evolution in the schools without answering abiogenesis, which of course is impossible and against all observation.

 

But where do evolutionists begin the second part? With a very large and complex creature with RNA maybe even DNA.

 

Then abiogenesis is just to get a chain of maybe 50 amino acids, all the same kind. They have now avoided a great gap where the impossible was.

 

That is a great con job.

 

The technique is repeated in all parts of atheistic origin science.

 

I have studied it all. 

 

Those that believe this are being fooled by a very clever technique. Divide into pieces and hide the impossible parts in none of the pieces. 

[kwikphilly]

Dear Mark,Don't you think your question would best be answered by evolutionists,since you are asking their description.....I am not a scientist,chemist or evolutionist by any stretch of the imagination so I don't believe my answer (opinion actually)could satisfy your querry....I believe  the first living thing must have been created by God and it seems that most the people that have posted in response to your question also share the same belief(my apologies if I made a wrong conclusion)..........it just seems like the question your asking cannot be appropriated by believers in Christ  so maybe we can encourage some evolutionists to join in on the fun! Many blessings to you Mark in your search,Kwik

[JDavis]

 

 

 

I looked over all the information.

 

 

I do want to thank you for the information.

 

However abiogenesis has to be part of the theory of evolution, since one cannot then account for any life on the earth at all. Most evolutionists run from that like the plague.  

 

 

 

Again I want to thank you for the information,

Mark

 

 

This is just false.  you can say it 100 times and it will still be false.

 

I did look at the information.

 

What I got from it was that there is no answer to what the first living creature was.

 

I also now want to discuss one of the great con jobs of evolutionary theory. 

 

Evolutionists want to divide the atoms to mankind evolution into 2 parts. Abiogenesis and then evolution from something to mankind. 

 

Abiogenesis would go from atoms to the first creature. But the other half must go from the first creature to mankind. So whether you divide it into 2 parts, the first creature must be known.

 

Now here is the great con job. Evolutionist want to teach evolution in the schools without answering abiogenesis, which of course is impossible and against all observation.

 

But where do evolutionists begin the second part? With a very large and complex creature with RNA maybe even DNA.

 

Then abiogenesis is just to get a chain of maybe 50 amino acids, all the same kind. They have now avoided a great gap where the impossible was.

 

That is a great con job.

 

The technique is repeated in all parts of atheistic origin science.

 

I have studied it all. 

 

Those that believe this are being fooled by a very clever technique. Divide into pieces and hide the impossible parts in none of the pieces. 

 

 

You are right, there is no good answer for what the first living creature was. 

 

Where you go wrong is that you claim that the theory of evolution should answer this question.  that is false.

 

The TOE does not deal with the origins of life, only the diversity of life.  one does not need to answer the first to address the 2nd.