rainbow wrote:

byofrcs wrote:

rainbow wrote:What has that paper to do with Abiogenesis?

Do you know what abiogenesis means ?

Yes.
Please answer my question.

byofrcs wrote:

rainbow wrote:

byofrcs wrote:

rainbow wrote:What has that paper to do with Abiogenesis?

Do you know what abiogenesis means ?

Yes.
Please answer my question.

You know the answer; understanding abiogenesis is finding the pathway out from chemistry and back from biology. This is working back from biology. It clearly states that is showing how so-called complexity can be evolved in molecular machines.

Evolution before genes
Vera Vasas, Chrisantha Fernando, Mauro Santos, Stuart Kauffman and Eors Szathmary
Biology Direct 2012, 7:1 doi:10.1186/1745-6150-7-1
Published: 5 January 2012

Abstract (provisional)
Background
Our current understanding of evolution is so tightly linked to template-dependent replication of DNA and RNA molecules that the old idea from Oparin of a self-reproducing 'garbage bag' ('coacervate') of chemicals that predated fully-fledged cell-like entities seems to be farfetched to most scientists today. However, this is exactly the kind of scheme we propose for how Darwinian evolution could have occurred prior to template replication.

Results
We cannot confirm previous claims that autocatalytic sets of organic polymer molecules could undergo evolution in any interesting sense by themselves. While we and others have previously imagined inhibition would result in selectability, we found that it produced multiple attractors in an autocatalytic set that cannot be selected for. Instead, we discovered that if general conditions are satisfied, the accumulation of adaptations in chemical reaction networks can occur. These conditions are the existence of rare reactions producing viable cores (analogous to a genotype), that sustains a molecular periphery (analogous to a phenotype).

Conclusions
We conclude that only when a chemical reaction network consists of many such viable cores, can it be evolvable. When many cores are enclosed in a compartment there is competition between cores within the same compartment, and when there are many compartments, there is between-compartment competition due to the phenotypic effects of cores and their periphery at the compartment level. Acquisition of cores by rare chemical events, and loss of cores at division, allows macromutation, limited heredity and selectability, thus explaining how a poor man's natural selection could have operated prior to genetic templates. This is the only demonstration to date of a mechanism by which pre-template accumulation of adaptation could occur. Reviewers This article was reviewed by William Martin and Eugene Koonin.

Authors’ response:
An understanding of the kinds of chemical organization that could sustain heredity is logically anterior to the problem of the stability of such organizations. We are planning to investigate the selective origin of template replication within such a framework in the near future. We also think that the origin of the genetic code is a considerably later step (as advocated by one of the authors): an interim (albeit dirty) RNA world must have prevailed, simply as a consequence of the opportunistic nature of evolution by natural selection.

rainbow wrote:Thanks, Rumraket.
After a short glance at the paper it appears to be purely theoretical, and no actual chemistry was carried out.
Now if they could construct such a viable core, and measure adaptation and Darwinian evolution - then we'd really have something.

Rumraket wrote:

rainbow wrote:Thanks, Rumraket.
After a short glance at the paper it appears to be purely theoretical, and no actual chemistry was carried out.
Now if they could construct such a viable core, and measure adaptation and Darwinian evolution - then we'd really have something.

Yes, the paper is on conceptual mathematical treatment, the details of which is unfortunately a bit out of my league. The authors seem to be trying to work out why previously tested autocatalytic sets didn't seem capable of evolution, in order to find out on that basis, what could evolve.
I like the biology-direct publisher alot because you can see the discussion with the reviewer, where different points are reflected back and forth and you get a better understanding of the contents.

rainbow wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

rainbow wrote:Thanks, Rumraket.
After a short glance at the paper it appears to be purely theoretical, and no actual chemistry was carried out.
Now if they could construct such a viable core, and measure adaptation and Darwinian evolution - then we'd really have something.

Yes, the paper is on conceptual mathematical treatment, the details of which is unfortunately a bit out of my league. The authors seem to be trying to work out why previously tested autocatalytic sets didn't seem capable of evolution, in order to find out on that basis, what could evolve.
I like the biology-direct publisher alot because you can see the discussion with the reviewer, where different points are reflected back and forth and you get a better understanding of the contents.

It is refreshingly critical of the failures of prior abiogenesis experimentation.

proudfootz wrote:Interested in abiogenesis since the record shows life began at some point after the rest.

rainbow wrote:

proudfootz wrote:Interested in abiogenesis since the record shows life began at some point after the rest.

Where exactly does the record show this?
What does 'after the rest mean'?

proudfootz wrote:

rainbow wrote:

proudfootz wrote:Interested in abiogenesis since the record shows life began at some point after the rest.

Where exactly does the record show this?
What does 'after the rest mean'?

It's my understanding that the fossil record shows a beginning in time and subsequent development.

The rest of everything besides life is the material substrate from which life apparently sprang.

rainbow wrote:

proudfootz wrote:

rainbow wrote:

proudfootz wrote:Interested in abiogenesis since the record shows life began at some point after the rest.

Where exactly does the record show this?
What does 'after the rest mean'?

It's my understanding that the fossil record shows a beginning in time and subsequent development.

The rest of everything besides life is the material substrate from which life apparently sprang.

Any evidence prior to the Great Bombardment would've been destroyed. We therefore can't rely on the fossil record.
http://www.livescience.com/5426-life-su ... dment.html

proudfootz wrote:
So the idea is that there might have been microbes that developed from non-living matter earlier than we have evidence for?

rainbow wrote:

proudfootz wrote:
So the idea is that there might have been microbes that developed from non-living matter earlier than we have evidence for?

One could consider that possibility.

Landrew wrote:It's either abiogenesis or magic. Since magic does not exist, what else could explain life?

proudfootz wrote:

Landrew wrote:It's either abiogenesis or magic. Since magic does not exist, what else could explain life?

Abiogenesis seems the most likely explanation.

If magic existed how could it be proved?

If life began by magical means, whoever did the magic trick did a good job of making it look like abiogenesis.

But what sort of magician does tricks that look like perfectly normal events?

Landrew wrote:

proudfootz wrote:

Landrew wrote:It's either abiogenesis or magic. Since magic does not exist, what else could explain life?

Abiogenesis seems the most likely explanation.

If magic existed how could it be proved?

If life began by magical means, whoever did the magic trick did a good job of making it look like abiogenesis.

But what sort of magician does tricks that look like perfectly normal events?

If magic could be proved to exist, it wouldn't be magic, would it?

Landrew wrote:It's either abiogenesis or magic. Since magic does not exist, what else could explain life?