What is the origin of life on Earth?

[URI]

>>>> I am looking for the form of life that the scientific community would consider as the first form of life to appear on Earth >>>>>>

The seeds of LIFE

These required heat, and a potential chemical energy that could be extracted.

Little or no water at the time

I expect a bacteria/slime mould that eats rock, living in a warm place, radiation heat..... most probable no light

and it pisses out water.....

It is able to traverse space and resist strong acids and many toxic gases.

Or maybe the first seeds of LIFE germinate and float high in the H2SO4 clouds of a planet like Venus........ until they have tamed that harsh environment... then land attack with rock eaters.....

They would utilise pure chemical energy and when the environment was suitably modified, they would genetically flower into the next in line in the fractal of LIFE.

This process would continue until the environment was totally tamed and the human species was expressed.

Ironically the human species in its desire to seed, has sent the environment back to almost prehistoric times.

What comes after seeding ?


From very little things big thing grow.....

 

[valich]

>>>> These required heat, and a potential chemical energy that could be extracted.

Little or no water at the time

I expect a bacteria/slime mould that eats rock, living in a warm place, radiation heat..... most probable no light

But bacterium and slime moulds (whether classified as fungi or amoebae) are already forms of life. We are looking for the origins of life.

 

[valich]

This is not endosymbiosis. Endosymbiosis is the engulfing and incorporation of another living organism which can live symbiotically inside the engulfing organism. Endosymbiosis does not include endocytosis of organic molecules.

I disagree entirely, for we are not trying to prevent you from thinking, but rather we are trying to get you to think in a way that is a little less uneducated. We are guiding through our criticisms, and showing you where your thinking is false, or where you have misinterpreted something, so that you can revise your thoughts and create more realistic and fulfulling explanations.

Strictly speaking you are correct that it is not endosymbiosis since it is not engulfing another "living" organism, but for lack of a better word - if there is one? - to describe the exact same process, I chose to use the word endosymbiosis. I suppose then that I should just say "engulfed," but this lacks the preciseness of the entire process.

You are criticizing my plausible hypothetical constructs that are nearly identical to the ones that, as you say, some biologists have spent their entire careers on, without supplying any better alternative explanations or additions.

I can equally say that I am trying my best to make you think more educated and think in terms of scientific methodology where we ask questions first, then form a hypothesis - as I am doing. You're not providing any explanations at all, let alone any better ones. Why don't you try being a little creative in your replys and try to come up with something, rather than just spontaneously jumping to "I disagree with this, I disagree with that."?

 

[Ophiolite]

Why don't you try being a little creative in your replys and try to come up with something, rather than just spontaneously jumping to "I disagree with this, I disagree with that."?

I for one shall be happy to do so when you learn to post in a cogent, structured, thoughtful, scientifically sound manner. Until then I shall continued to correct around 25% of what you post, as I have neither the time or the inclination to correct it all.
I have already all but abandoned any expectation that you will allow yourself to benefit from this. I wish to make certain, however, that casual readers understand the weaknesses in your posts.

Strictly speaking you are correct that it is not endosymbiosis since it is not engulfing another "living" organism, but for lack of a better word - if there is one? - to describe the exact same process, I chose to use the word endosymbiosis. I suppose then that I should just say "engulfed," but this lacks the preciseness of the entire process.

So, rather than use a word that was perhaps imprecise you chose to use a word that was wrong. That seems typical of your approach.

 

[Idle Mind]

You are criticizing my plausible hypothetical constructs that are nearly identical to the ones that, as you say, some biologists have spent their entire careers on, without supplying any better alternative explanations or additions.

I am absolutely not. It's not the ideas I contest, it's your ridiculous attempts at proposing a mechanism. I'm sure the papers you have read speculate at a mechanism a little, but I don't think they assume the jumps you have, and I doubt very much that they have the overall lack of logic and understanding that you exhibit.

 

[valich]

I am absolutely not. It's not the ideas I contest, it's your ridiculous attempts at proposing a mechanism. I'm sure the papers you have read speculate at a mechanism a little, but I don't think they assume the jumps you have, and I doubt very much that they have the overall lack of logic and understanding that you exhibit.

This is true. The papers are not proposing - and "no" I am not assuming, I am hypothesizing/speculating (there's a big difference here) - the jumps that I am hypothetically suggesting as a "possible" hypothetical construct. Still, you are not contributing: only criticizing!

 

[Ophiolite]

. Still, you are not contributing: only criticizing!

It's called peer review. It's a central part of how science works to day. The contributions generally follow once the foolish ideas have been dispensed with. The more self criticism that is applied, the fewer foolish ideas appear and the faster we can get to the contribution part.

 

[valich]

It's called peer review. It's a central part of how science works to day. The contributions generally follow once the foolish ideas have been dispensed with. The more self criticism that is applied, the fewer foolish ideas appear and the faster we can get to the contribution part.

And that's exactly what I am doing: "peer review." I am reading and analyzing and "peer reviewing" as many of the articles that address the issue at hand before trying to suggest a hypothesis that agrees with, contributes to, or expands on it.

 

[Idle Mind]

I am hypothesizing/speculating (there's a big difference here) - the jumps that I am hypothetically suggesting as a "possible" hypothetical construct.

And I'm telling you that your hypothesized/speculated mechanism is incorrect and fundamentally flawed. Thus, you should start over, not continue defending it by adding to it.

And that's exactly what I am doing: "peer review." I am reading and analyzing and "peer reviewing" as many of the articles that address the issue at hand before trying to suggest a hypothesis that agrees with, contributes to, or expands on it.

You seem to be mistaken. Peer review in the scientific forum is essentially an error-checking system. When you submit a research paper for publication, the journal that received your submittal will send it out to associated experts in the same field, who will look at your research and determine whether or not your results were conclusive, whether or not the techniques you used were valid, etc. This is peer review. Not someone like you reading their papers and then bastardizing the findings with his own undereducated thoughts on how the results shown by the paper are possible.

 

[CharonZ]

Darn, I can't believe that I let myself suck into it, but then those bastards turned the heating off in my lab and the coffee machine is broke and so is my mood.
This is already the second thread dedicated to the rantings of valich.
I did try to reason with him, as he at first appeared to be eager but merely unknowledgable with the desire to boast in publicity. As such I did classified him as an undergrad student with interest, but too lazy to actually try to do follow-up research necessary for true understanding.
I know that type, as some of mine students were also that way. Sometimes if those people face a situtation in which they are repetitively proven wrong, they become more humble and thus more willing to actually learn (instead of trying to boast without, ironically, knowing how little they actually do understand).
As several have found out, however, valich does not budge. He utters a theory, mostly derived from grossly misunderstanding of even the most basic concepts (which by itself is not a fault). But if errors are pointed out instead of trying to understand, he just grabs some tidbits from somewhere else and tries to cover up his errors.
At least I have to give him credit that he reads some of the sources pointed out to him from others. But instead of either trying to understand it by reading textbooks, or at least asking here if he doesn't understand some concepts (which is OK, everyone has to start somewhere), he just again misquotes stuff from the new source. This is annyoing to no end.
Valich, if you are a student of some sorts, I really hope that you are not like this in RL as you are on the boards.
The first step to learn is to identify the things one does not understand. Only with the acceptance of ones shortcomings one can truly learn. That's about the only thing I can/will tell you.

 

[valich]

I am not submitting a scientific article for publication. Before you do so you present the hypothesis with your colleagues and discuss it's merits: not just blatantly condemn it and criticize the colleague with condescending remarks. The colleagues then question you in a rational polite way and normally offer alternative suggestions and an alternative hypothesis, for study and speculation, to support their alternative view. At least that's the way we do it in our graduate school and labs.

I have yet to hear any alternative constructive remarks that we can use to build on: only criticism. That's not scientific progress.

 

[valich]

Darn, I can't believe that I let myself suck into it, but then those bastards turned the heating off in my lab and the coffee machine is broke and so is my mood.
This is already the second thread dedicated to the rantings of valich.
I did try to reason with him, as he at first appeared to be eager but merely unknowledgable with the desire to boast in publicity. As such I did classified him as an undergrad student with interest, but too lazy to actually try to do follow-up research necessary for true understanding.
I know that type, as some of mine students were also that way. Sometimes if those people face a situtation in which they are repetitively proven wrong, they become more humble and thus more willing to actually learn (instead of trying to boast without, ironically, knowing how little they actually do understand).
As several have found out, however, valich does not budge. He utters a theory, mostly derived from grossly misunderstanding of even the most basic concepts (which by itself is not a fault). But if errors are pointed out instead of trying to understand, he just grabs some tidbits from somewhere else and tries to cover up his errors.
At least I have to give him credit that he reads some of the sources pointed out to him from others. But instead of either trying to understand it by reading textbooks, or at least asking here if he doesn't understand some concepts (which is OK, everyone has to start somewhere), he just again misquotes stuff from the new source. This is annyoing to no end.
Valich, if you are a student of some sorts, I really hope that you are not like this in RL as you are on the boards.
The first step to learn is to identify the things one does not understand. Only with the acceptance of ones shortcomings one can truly learn. That's about the only thing I can/will tell you.

CharonZ: If you recall, I was the one who first suggested the RNA first world, then you agreed and posted a citation in support of that. We came to an agreement. But there is also such a thing as a pre-RNA world, and this is now what we are speculating about.

What is it exactly that you are reading in my posts that you are misinterpreting, i.e., that you are assuming that I am not "budging" from? I am very much open-minded criticism, as we are in all my scientific graduate classes. But I wish those that criticize so much here on this forum would support their views as you so rationally did in support of the RNA first theory. This is not being done here now. We seem to be only going back-and-forth with condescending remarks, rather than offering anything that might lead toward progression.

 

[Ophiolite]

I am not submitting a scientific article for publication. .

Exactly, so the peer review I referred to was an informal kind of peer review taking place within this forum. In this informal assessment of your posts you have been peer reviewed by half a dozen knowledgeable individuals and repeatedly found wanting. You have repeatedly failed to accept this, but instead wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, rather like a small child who claims they have not taken the chocolate, even thought the brown streaks are evident around their mouth.
The brown streaks are also evident around your mouth valich, though I rather think they are from all the shit you are talking.

Before you do so you present the hypothesis with your colleagues and discuss it's merits: .

And when your colleagues tell you it has glaring errors, omissions and misinterpretation, it makes a lot of sense if you give those comments some credence. But not you valich, you are so secure (or is it insecure?) in your certainty that you have become quite deaf.

The colleagues then question you in a rational polite way .....

Really?!!! Where have you been living? If your colleagues are any good at all they will cajole, berate, castigate and condemn. When they see nonsense they will call it nonsense (or, if they are Ophiolite or Invert Nexus, they may choose to call it fucking nonsense).

You claim you want to hold useful discussions, yet all you do in thread after thread is antagonise by your uneducated, immature, unreceptive, self righteous manner.
Kid, you are one fucked up individual. I recommend counselling. Try and get someone who has an excellent reputation in the field. If you get a greenhorn you would likely drive them suicidal. I wouldn't want that on my conscience.

Now bugger off and play with the other children please.

 

[valich]

Those links are all nice and irrelevant and such, and I am aware that oligonucleotides and other pre-biotic molecules have been experimentally created. I am not contesting that. What I am contesting is your proposed mechanism for the origin of a part of the glycolytic pathway.

In retrospect, I think that to retreat back to about this point may be a good place to start anew to continue a free-thinking productive intellectual forum without condescending belittlement, the use of vulgar statements, and anti-productive harsh criticism, as you see that had followed from here certain other participants from here.

I absolutely agree with you. My proposed mechanism based solely on self-replication and the creation of glycose that we have already achied in simulated pre-biotic early environment conditions leaves a large gap to be filled to get to the glycolytic cycle.

We have experimentally produced at least eleven amino acids, oligonucleotides and other nucleotides, and other pre-biotic organic compounds. Viroids are interesting to study in relation to the origin(s) of life because they are able to copy their own RNA without the use of polymerase or templates, although the exact mechanism is still unclear and it is still not been proven that they require the host cells mechanism. In any case, this replication is accomplished without DNA, without transcription, and without a template?).

The above is what we have in the RNA-world. Using what we now know and have, can we proceed in a positive direction with the goal of the advancement of science in mind, to progress and elaborate on this in anyway? This is why I was proposing a hypothesis dwelling into the pre-RNA world: a hypothetical step toward explaining how RNA can replicate on its own, even though this too is being debated.

Let us please start anew to productively progress in science, okay?

 

[CharonZ]

CharonZ: If you recall, I was the one who first suggested the RNA first world, then you agreed and posted a citation in support of that. We came to an agreement. But there is also such a thing as a pre-RNA world, and this is now what we are speculating about.

Great, now you are directly lying, or don't know what you posted yourself:

It's that crossover from non-life to life that I'm looking for. Some bacteria (Gram-negative Firmicutes) have no self containg cell wall. The origin of life would have had to have been a precursor to an anaerobic thermophile bateria capable of being created in the harsh, extreme, anaerobic environments that existed before 3.8 bya. What elements necessary for life were there then: water, nitrogen, hydrogen, light, lightning. We've experimentally created 11 amino acids under these types of environments.

So you first you speculated about some kind of prebacterium.

Only after I posted you started to parrot about RNA-worlds and suchalikes.

 

[valich]

Great, now you are directly lying, or don't know what you posted yourself:


So you first you speculated about some kind of prebacterium.

Only after I posted you started to parrot about RNA-worlds and suchalikes.

Refer to the essence of my post above. Let's stop the pointless bickering and trivial quarreling and move onto a productive forum about the origin of life. Your post in support of the RNA-world was an excellent one.

 

[Ophiolite]

Let's stop the pointless bickering and trivial quarreling

Calling someone on their intellectual dishonesty is seldom pointless; focusing on scientific accuracy is never trivial.

 

[valich]

I suppose you are refering to Mycoplasmas. They don't have a cell wall but of course a cell membrane. They are not old in that sense because it is likely that they lost their cell wall due to adaptation to a parasitic life style.

Regarding first life form, the question is far more complex. In fact, there are a myriad of assumptions and theories, some of which are summarized in this intersting Review: "Controversies on the origin of life"

:
My apologizies. I believe you posted a reply on another thread during this time period that said, "Yup. RNA came first," and that is what led me to say we were in agreement on this. I then quickly download the article you quoted above and read it immeaditely and am almost through with reading most of the reference. The one above neatly summarizes the various hypotheses:
"heterotrophic vs. autotrophic origins," "replicators or metabolism first," and "early or late cellularization," but it is the references that led me to the pre-RNA world. Especially the explanations given in "Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origin of the RNA World," by Leslie Orgel, Critical Reviews in Bioscience and Molecular Biology, 2001 and his explanation of the pre-biotic synthesis of nucleotides, the Butlerow (Formose) Synthesis of sugars from formaldehyde, and phosphorylation of nucleosides:

First we suppose that nucleoside bases and sugars were formed by prebiotic reactions on the primitive Earth. Next, nuceleotides were formed from pre-biotic bases, sugars, and inorganic phosphates or polyphosphates, and they accumulated in an adequately pure state. A mineral catalyst - for example, montmorillonite - then catalyzed the formation of long single-stranded polynucleotides, some of which were then converted to complementary double strands by template-directed synthesis. In this way a library of double-stranded RNA accumulated on primitive Earth. Among the double-stranded RNA was at least one that on melting yielded a (single-stranded) ribozyme capable od copying itself and its complement. Copying the complement would then have produced a second ribozyme molecule and then repeated copying of the ribozyme and its complement would have led to an exponential growing population. In this scenario this is where natural selection takes over. Darwin suggestsed that all life is descended from one or a few simple organisms that evolved on Earth a long time ago. According to the more radical scenario of the molecular biologists', the whole biosphere descends from one or a few replicating polynucleotides that formed on the primitive Earth about four billion years ago.

What makes this scenario so plausible to me is that we've already been able to replicate 3/4ths of it by experiments in the lab under simulated early Earth environmental conditions: self-organizing biochemical cycles and metabolic pathways. Encapsulation could have easily came later through ocean churning bubbles - the "bubble theory."

The presence of ribosugar acids and deoxysugar acids in the Murchison meteorite suggest that they may have been present in the primitive Earth....RNA viruses [viroids?] may be the last remnants of the RNA world.

"The roads to and from the RNA world," by Jason B. Dworkin, Antonio Lazcano, Stanley Miller, Journal of Theoretical Biology 222, 2003, pp.127-134

The evidence seems to point to a self-replicating metabolic system as the origin of life, as have already been created experimentally.

 

[Ophiolite]

:My apologizies.

Mark this one in your diaries, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[Tristan]

What elements necessary for life were there then: water, nitrogen, hydrogen, light, lightning. We've experimentally created 11 amino acids under these types of environments.

Yes we have created amino acids and organic compounds in simulated conditions believed to be how early earth was. HOWEVER, these results are hotly debated. Why? Because no one EXACTLY knows what the conditions were like on earth nearly 3.5-4 billion years ago. The Miller-Urey experiment proved that amino acids and organic compounds could be created spontaneously, if given the right conditions. The combination of compounds used the expermient was an educated guess (water, ammonia, methane, hyrdogen... and of course a little simulate lightning.)