David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:

“I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:

‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance

(Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)

THE IRONY

A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly..

A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.

THE COMPLETE IRONY

The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.

The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).

To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out..

The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.

On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 7:50:20 AM UTC-4, MarkE wrote:
> David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
>
> “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
>
> ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
>
> (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)

Yes, I noticed that your comments actually ignore everything that Deamer wrote. And, indeed, this blog post is in no way a summary of current thought on OoL, simply an attempt to refute one of the ID movements arguments that OoL is impossible in principle. If you are interested in learning about the science in the field, you're stuck reading an actual book.
>
> THE IRONY
>
> A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
>
> A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
>
> THE COMPLETE IRONY
>
> The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
>
> The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
>
> To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
>
> The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.

Perhaps you missed the point of the Dyson quote. It is not offered as a "satisfactory summary of how life may have begun." It is offered as an explanation of how macromolecules could get concentrated within membranes. It is an informed guess about one of the earliest steps in a possible pathway towards life, not a summary of how life began.

On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 10:05:20 PM UTC+10, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 7:50:20 AM UTC-4, MarkE wrote:
> > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> >
> > “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> >
> > ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> > https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> >
> > (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> Yes, I noticed that your comments actually ignore everything that Deamer wrote. And, indeed, this blog post is in no way a summary of current thought on OoL, simply an attempt to refute one of the ID movements arguments that OoL is impossible in principle. If you are interested in learning about the science in the field, you're stuck reading an actual book.
> >
> > THE IRONY
> >
> > A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> >
> > A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
> >
> > THE COMPLETE IRONY
> >
> > The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> >
> > The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> >
> > To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> >
> > The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> Perhaps you missed the point of the Dyson quote. It is not offered as a "satisfactory summary of how life may have begun." It is offered as an explanation of how macromolecules could get concentrated within membranes. It is an informed guess about one of the earliest steps in a possible pathway towards life, not a summary of how life began.

No. Rather, "how macromolecules could get concentrated within membranes" is offered as a satisfactory explanation of how life may have begun*.

* My lawyers advised me to further qualify this as, "_begun_, referring to an early, though not necessarily first, step, not to imply the immediate and subsequent appearance of _life_, in and of itself, though neither to implicitly nor expressly exclude such a possibility, and notwithstanding several and varied definitions thereof provided forthwith..."

On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 10:05:20 PM UTC+10, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 7:50:20 AM UTC-4, MarkE wrote:
> > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> >
> > “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> >
> > ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> > https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> >
> > (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> Yes, I noticed that your comments actually ignore everything that Deamer wrote. And, indeed, this blog post is in no way a summary of current thought on OoL, simply an attempt to refute one of the ID movements arguments that OoL is impossible in principle. If you are interested in learning about the science in the field, you're stuck reading an actual book.

It's entirely my prerogative to not address the body of Deamer's article -- I clearly have a separate, demonstrated purpose in referencing it. Suggesting that *not* addressing amounts to dishonesty or avoidance is a cheap attempt at casting aspersions.

And relax, I'll get to addressing Deamer's book in good time.

> >
> > THE IRONY
> >
> > A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> >
> > A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
> >
> > THE COMPLETE IRONY
> >
> > The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> >
> > The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> >
> > To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> >
> > The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> Perhaps you missed the point of the Dyson quote. It is not offered as a "satisfactory summary of how life may have begun." It is offered as an explanation of how macromolecules could get concentrated within membranes. It is an informed guess about one of the earliest steps in a possible pathway towards life, not a summary of how life began.

On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 8:30:20 AM UTC-4, Mark wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 10:05:20 PM UTC+10, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 7:50:20 AM UTC-4, MarkE wrote:
> > > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> > >
> > > “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> > >
> > > ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> > > https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> > >
> > > (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> > Yes, I noticed that your comments actually ignore everything that Deamer wrote. And, indeed, this blog post is in no way a summary of current thought on OoL, simply an attempt to refute one of the ID movements arguments that OoL is impossible in principle. If you are interested in learning about the science in the field, you're stuck reading an actual book.
> > >
> > > THE IRONY
> > >
> > > A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> > >
> > > A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
> > >
> > > THE COMPLETE IRONY
> > >
> > > The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> > >
> > > The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> > >
> > > To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> > >
> > > The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> > Perhaps you missed the point of the Dyson quote. It is not offered as a "satisfactory summary of how life may have begun." It is offered as an explanation of how macromolecules could get concentrated within membranes. It is an informed guess about one of the earliest steps in a possible pathway towards life, not a summary of how life began.
> No. Rather, "how macromolecules could get concentrated within membranes" is offered as a satisfactory explanation of how life may have begun*.
>
> * My lawyers advised me to further qualify this as, "_begun_, referring to an early, though not necessarily first, step, not to imply the immediate and subsequent appearance of _life_, in and of itself, though neither to implicitly nor expressly exclude such a possibility, and notwithstanding several and varied definitions thereof provided forthwith..."
Sure, explaining how macromolecules can get concentrated is an attempt to explain one, of many, necessary early steps. It also does suggest a way in which evolution can happen without replication, at least without accurate replication. To be explicit, these protoprotocells would reproduce better if they accumulated those monomers most likely to polymerize when concentrated.. To be more explicit, the monomers equilibrate across the membrane, the polymers are two big to do so. The polymers, however, create an osmotic gradient which draws water in. As long as lipids are around to insert into the membrane, the protoprotocells will grow and divide. There will be a selection for those containing the most readily polymerizable monomers. That's a form of chemical evolution, without genes. If it turns out that one of the polymers that works well is RNA or something like it, then you are at the start of a pathway leading to genetics.

On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 8:35:20 AM UTC-4, Mark wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 10:05:20 PM UTC+10, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 7:50:20 AM UTC-4, MarkE wrote:
> > > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> > >
> > > “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> > >
> > > ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> > > https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> > >
> > > (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> > Yes, I noticed that your comments actually ignore everything that Deamer wrote. And, indeed, this blog post is in no way a summary of current thought on OoL, simply an attempt to refute one of the ID movements arguments that OoL is impossible in principle. If you are interested in learning about the science in the field, you're stuck reading an actual book.
> It's entirely my prerogative to not address the body of Deamer's article -- I clearly have a separate, demonstrated purpose in referencing it. Suggesting that *not* addressing amounts to dishonesty or avoidance is a cheap attempt at casting aspersions.

Of course, you can talk about whatever you like. It is though, I think, less than totally forthright to accuse Deamer of "sleight-of-hand" for including Dyson's quote without making any attempt to deal with the point Deamer was making. And, as I said, I don't think you quite got Dyson's point. It is a long way from proposing a model of a single early step in the origin of life to a tornado in a junkyard.

>
> And relax, I'll get to addressing Deamer's book in good time.

I've already read it, I'm in no hurry. Just as I'm not in the least concerned about whether James Tour takes down his Youtube videos.
> > >
> > > THE IRONY
> > >
> > > A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> > >
> > > A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
> > >
> > > THE COMPLETE IRONY
> > >
> > > The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> > >
> > > The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> > >
> > > To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> > >
> > > The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> > Perhaps you missed the point of the Dyson quote. It is not offered as a "satisfactory summary of how life may have begun." It is offered as an explanation of how macromolecules could get concentrated within membranes. It is an informed guess about one of the earliest steps in a possible pathway towards life, not a summary of how life began.

On 8/30/23 4:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
> David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
>
> “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
>
> ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
>
> (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
>
> THE IRONY
>
> A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
>
> A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
The two are not really comparable. Dyson was offering speculation on a
single step which might be involved in the origins of life. His
knowledge of thermodynamics qualifies him in that area. Tour was not
speaking about the origin of life at all, but about the *state of
research* in the origin of life. He has no experience in that area.
> THE COMPLETE IRONY
>
> The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
>
> The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
>
> To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
>
> The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
You really, REALLY need to learn the theory of evolution.
The problem with the tornado in a junkyard is not that messy occurrences
such as that do not occur in evolution, but that they are not the *only*
thing that occurs in evolution. Evolution also has inheritance and
selection, or what you call magic.
--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 5:05:20 AM UTC-7, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 7:50:20 AM UTC-4, MarkE wrote:
> > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> >
"Calculating The Odds That Life Could Begin By Chance"
By Dave Deamer | April 30th 2009 01:00 AM
https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance

Read it again. Start with the publication date 0ver 14 Years Ago.

On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 7:20:20 AM UTC+10, Gary Hurd wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 5:05:20 AM UTC-7, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 7:50:20 AM UTC-4, MarkE wrote:
> > > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> > >
> "Calculating The Odds That Life Could Begin By Chance"
> By Dave Deamer | April 30th 2009 01:00 AM
> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
>
> Read it again. Start with the publication date 0ver 14 Years Ago.

Not relevant, as per my comment to Bill: https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/Ki5fLxziHos/m/lTHwD434AQAJ

On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 1:20:22 AM UTC+10, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 8/30/23 4:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
> > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> >
> > “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> >
> > ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> > https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> >
> > (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> >
> > THE IRONY
> >
> > A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> >
> > A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
> The two are not really comparable. Dyson was offering speculation on a
> single step which might be involved in the origins of life. His
> knowledge of thermodynamics qualifies him in that area. Tour was not
> speaking about the origin of life at all, but about the *state of
> research* in the origin of life. He has no experience in that area.
> > THE COMPLETE IRONY
> >
> > The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> >
> > The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> >
> > To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> >
> > The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> You really, REALLY need to learn the theory of evolution.
>
> The problem with the tornado in a junkyard is not that messy occurrences
> such as that do not occur in evolution, but that they are not the *only*
> thing that occurs in evolution. Evolution also has inheritance and
> selection, or what you call magic.

Think about what's happening in this scenario. Random polymers are forming using racemic monomers, with cross-linkages, interfering products, etc: i.e.., garbage. The result is the most successful tar concentrators consume available building blocks at an increasing rate. A wave of the selection wand won't help here.

>
> --
> Mark Isaak
> "Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
> doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 10:50:20 PM UTC+10, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 8:30:20 AM UTC-4, Mark wrote:
> > On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 10:05:20 PM UTC+10, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 7:50:20 AM UTC-4, MarkE wrote:
> > > > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> > > >
> > > > “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> > > >
> > > > ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> > > > https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> > > >
> > > > (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> > > Yes, I noticed that your comments actually ignore everything that Deamer wrote. And, indeed, this blog post is in no way a summary of current thought on OoL, simply an attempt to refute one of the ID movements arguments that OoL is impossible in principle. If you are interested in learning about the science in the field, you're stuck reading an actual book.
> > > >
> > > > THE IRONY
> > > >
> > > > A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> > > >
> > > > A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
> > > >
> > > > THE COMPLETE IRONY
> > > >
> > > > The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> > > >
> > > > The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> > > >
> > > > To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> > > >
> > > > The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> > > Perhaps you missed the point of the Dyson quote. It is not offered as a "satisfactory summary of how life may have begun." It is offered as an explanation of how macromolecules could get concentrated within membranes. It is an informed guess about one of the earliest steps in a possible pathway towards life, not a summary of how life began.
> > No. Rather, "how macromolecules could get concentrated within membranes" is offered as a satisfactory explanation of how life may have begun*.
> >
> > * My lawyers advised me to further qualify this as, "_begun_, referring to an early, though not necessarily first, step, not to imply the immediate and subsequent appearance of _life_, in and of itself, though neither to implicitly nor expressly exclude such a possibility, and notwithstanding several and varied definitions thereof provided forthwith..."
> Sure, explaining how macromolecules can get concentrated is an attempt to explain one, of many, necessary early steps. It also does suggest a way in which evolution can happen without replication, at least without accurate replication. To be explicit, these protoprotocells would reproduce better if they accumulated those monomers most likely to polymerize when concentrated. To be more explicit, the monomers equilibrate across the membrane, the polymers are two big to do so. The polymers, however, create an osmotic gradient which draws water in. As long as lipids are around to insert into the membrane, the protoprotocells will grow and divide. There will be a selection for those containing the most readily polymerizable monomers. That's a form of chemical evolution, without genes. If it turns out that one of the polymers that works well is RNA or something like it, then you are at the start of a pathway leading to genetics.

Random polymers are forming using racemic monomers, with cross-linkages, interfering products, etc: i.e., garbage. The result is the most successful tar concentrators consume available building blocks at an increasing rate.

Steven Benner on the Asphalt Paradox (quoted in an EN article):

"An enormous amount of empirical data have established, as a rule, that organic systems, given energy and left to themselves, devolve to give uselessly complex mixtures, “asphalts”… Further, chemical theories, including the second law of thermodynamics, bonding theory that describes the “space” accessible to sets of atoms, and structure theory requiring that replication systems occupy only tiny fractions of that space, suggest that it is impossible for any non-living chemical system to escape devolution to enter into the Darwinian world of the “living.” ... Such statements of impossibility apply even to macromolecules not assumed to be necessary for RIRI [replication involving replicable imperfections] evolution. Again richly supported by empirical observation, material escapes from known metabolic cycles that might be viewed as models for a “metabolism first” origin of life, making such cycles short-lived. Lipids that provide tidy compartments under the close supervision of a graduate student (supporting a protocell-first model for origins) are quite non-robust with respect to small environmental perturbations, such as a change in the salt concentration, the introduction of organic solvents, or a change in temperature…"
https://evolutionnews.org/2023/05/hello-professor-dave-james-tours-criticisms-of-ool-research-echo-those-of-other-experts/

On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 7:15:20 PM UTC-4, Mark wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 10:50:20 PM UTC+10, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 8:30:20 AM UTC-4, Mark wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 10:05:20 PM UTC+10, broger....@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 7:50:20 AM UTC-4, MarkE wrote:
> > > > > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> > > > >
> > > > > “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> > > > >
> > > > > ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> > > > > https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> > > > >
> > > > > (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> > > > Yes, I noticed that your comments actually ignore everything that Deamer wrote. And, indeed, this blog post is in no way a summary of current thought on OoL, simply an attempt to refute one of the ID movements arguments that OoL is impossible in principle. If you are interested in learning about the science in the field, you're stuck reading an actual book.
> > > > >
> > > > > THE IRONY
> > > > >
> > > > > A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> > > > >
> > > > > A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
> > > > >
> > > > > THE COMPLETE IRONY
> > > > >
> > > > > The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> > > > >
> > > > > The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> > > > >
> > > > > To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> > > > >
> > > > > The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> > > > Perhaps you missed the point of the Dyson quote. It is not offered as a "satisfactory summary of how life may have begun." It is offered as an explanation of how macromolecules could get concentrated within membranes. It is an informed guess about one of the earliest steps in a possible pathway towards life, not a summary of how life began.
> > > No. Rather, "how macromolecules could get concentrated within membranes" is offered as a satisfactory explanation of how life may have begun*.
> > >
> > > * My lawyers advised me to further qualify this as, "_begun_, referring to an early, though not necessarily first, step, not to imply the immediate and subsequent appearance of _life_, in and of itself, though neither to implicitly nor expressly exclude such a possibility, and notwithstanding several and varied definitions thereof provided forthwith..."
> > Sure, explaining how macromolecules can get concentrated is an attempt to explain one, of many, necessary early steps. It also does suggest a way in which evolution can happen without replication, at least without accurate replication. To be explicit, these protoprotocells would reproduce better if they accumulated those monomers most likely to polymerize when concentrated. To be more explicit, the monomers equilibrate across the membrane, the polymers are two big to do so. The polymers, however, create an osmotic gradient which draws water in. As long as lipids are around to insert into the membrane, the protoprotocells will grow and divide. There will be a selection for those containing the most readily polymerizable monomers. That's a form of chemical evolution, without genes. If it turns out that one of the polymers that works well is RNA or something like it, then you are at the start of a pathway leading to genetics.
> Random polymers are forming using racemic monomers, with cross-linkages, interfering products, etc: i.e., garbage. The result is the most successful tar concentrators consume available building blocks at an increasing rate.
> Steven Benner on the Asphalt Paradox (quoted in an EN article):
>
> "An enormous amount of empirical data have established, as a rule, that organic systems, given energy and left to themselves, devolve to give uselessly complex mixtures, “asphalts”… Further, chemical theories, including the second law of thermodynamics, bonding theory that describes the “space” accessible to sets of atoms, and structure theory requiring that replication systems occupy only tiny fractions of that space, suggest that it is impossible for any non-living chemical system to escape devolution to enter into the Darwinian world of the “living.” ... Such statements of impossibility apply even to macromolecules not assumed to be necessary for RIRI [replication involving replicable imperfections] evolution. Again richly supported by empirical observation, material escapes from known metabolic cycles that might be viewed as models for a “metabolism first” origin of life, making such cycles short-lived. Lipids that provide tidy compartments under the close supervision of a graduate student (supporting a protocell-first model for origins) are quite non-robust with respect to small environmental perturbations, such as a change in the salt concentration, the introduction of organic solvents, or a change in temperature…"
> https://evolutionnews.org/2023/05/hello-professor-dave-james-tours-criticisms-of-ool-research-echo-those-of-other-experts/

There's no way for me to evaluate that without references to the "enormous amounts of empirical data," and the "richly supported by empirical observation." I'll be around whenever you get around to reading Deamer's book.

On 8/30/2023 6:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
> David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
>
> “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
>
> ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
>
> (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
>
> THE IRONY
>
> A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
>
> A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
>
> THE COMPLETE IRONY
>
> The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
>
> The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
>
> To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
>
> The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
>
The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor.
Currently about the only thing that we can expect is to figure out the
most likely scenario of how life came to be, but everyone knows that, it
would only be the most likely scenario, and that since it only seems to
have happened once, it could obviously have occurred in some less
probable manner. What you have to deal with is what is around the gap,
but you run from doing that. Life arose somehow, and that is what you
have to deal with. You can claim that your designer did it, but is that
the designer that you want to believe in? For the vast majority of
anti-evolution biblical creationists the god responsible for the origin
of life on earth is not the Biblical god. End of story. Until that
changes the Top Six best evidences for IDiocy that killed IDiocy on TO
(the origin of life is #3 of the Top Six) just means that you and most
other bibilcal creationists are just out of luck. Science denial isn't
going to do you any good when it is what is around the gaps that you
really can't deal with.
Ron Okimoto

On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 8:30:21 PM UTC+10, RonO wrote:
> On 8/30/2023 6:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
> > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> >
> > “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> >
> > ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> > https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> >
> > (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> >
> > THE IRONY
> >
> > A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> >
> > A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
> >
> > THE COMPLETE IRONY
> >
> > The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> >
> > The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> >
> > To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> >
> > The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> >
> The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor.
> Currently about the only thing that we can expect is to figure out the
> most likely scenario of how life came to be, but everyone knows that, it
> would only be the most likely scenario, and that since it only seems to
> have happened once, it could obviously have occurred in some less
> probable manner. What you have to deal with is what is around the gap,
> but you run from doing that. Life arose somehow, and that is what you
> have to deal with. You can claim that your designer did it, but is that
> the designer that you want to believe in? For the vast majority of
> anti-evolution biblical creationists the god responsible for the origin
> of life on earth is not the Biblical god. End of story. Until that
> changes the Top Six best evidences for IDiocy that killed IDiocy on TO
> (the origin of life is #3 of the Top Six) just means that you and most
> other bibilcal creationists are just out of luck. Science denial isn't
> going to do you any good when it is what is around the gaps that you
> really can't deal with.
>
> Ron Okimoto

"The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor."

In terms likelihood of arriving at an accepted theory? Yes, possibly.

But one of the strongest for questioning the adequacy of natural causes alone, because by definition it excludes natural selection. Which is the main point of my OP.

"You can claim that your designer did it, but is that the designer that you want to believe in?

What sort of designer do you believe is implied/demonstrated by this claim?

Mark wrote:

> On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 8:30:21 PM UTC+10, RonO wrote:
> > On 8/30/2023 6:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
> > > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article
> > > relating to OoL as follows:
> > >
> > > “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at
> > > Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> > >
> > > ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just
> > > little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or
> > > it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less
> > > random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that
> > > small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules
> > > could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules,
> > > you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells
> > > would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become
> > > more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of
> > > replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so
> > > big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or
> > > environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be
> > > its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically,
> > > the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those
> > > conditions.’”
> > >
https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> > >
> > > (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> > >
> > > THE IRONY
> > >
> > > A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how
> > > life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> > >
> > > A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant
> > > expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent
> > > critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as
> > > unqualified to comment.
> > >
> > > THE COMPLETE IRONY
> > >
> > > The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a
> > > Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> > >
> > > The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a
> > > satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or
> > > shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the
> > > tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little
> > > bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random
> > > collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> > >
> > > To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with
> > > more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> > >
> > > The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of
> > > replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass
> > > in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> > >
> > The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor.
> > Currently about the only thing that we can expect is to figure out the
> > most likely scenario of how life came to be, but everyone knows that, it
> > would only be the most likely scenario, and that since it only seems to
> > have happened once, it could obviously have occurred in some less
> > probable manner. What you have to deal with is what is around the gap,
> > but you run from doing that. Life arose somehow, and that is what you
> > have to deal with. You can claim that your designer did it, but is that
> > the designer that you want to believe in? For the vast majority of
> > anti-evolution biblical creationists the god responsible for the origin
> > of life on earth is not the Biblical god. End of story. Until that
> > changes the Top Six best evidences for IDiocy that killed IDiocy on TO
> > (the origin of life is #3 of the Top Six) just means that you and most
> > other bibilcal creationists are just out of luck. Science denial isn't
> > going to do you any good when it is what is around the gaps that you
> > really can't deal with.
> >
> > Ron Okimoto
>
> "The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor."
>
> In terms likelihood of arriving at an accepted theory? Yes, possibly.
>
> But one of the strongest for questioning the adequacy of natural causes
> alone, because by definition it excludes natural selection. Which is the main
> point of my OP.
>
----------------------------------

The search for the origin of life does exclude natural selection. It also
excludes the germ theory of disease, the theory of gravity, and the
reason men can't stand to see women cry.

While the religious have been stuffing god into gaps for millenia,
many of those gaps have been eliminated, one by one, using science.
Yet many still remain.

Origin of life research merely highlights yet one more gap into which
to shoehorn god. There's nothing particularly special about that gap.

Scientists admit they don't know the answer but are studying it and
creationists assert the problem is solved but present no evidence.
So, what else is new?

--
The Lord works in ways indistinguishable from the null hypothesis.

On Friday, September 1, 2023 at 12:35:21 AM UTC+10, Dexter wrote:
> Mark wrote:
>
> > On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 8:30:21 PM UTC+10, RonO wrote:
> > > On 8/30/2023 6:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
> > > > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article
> > > > relating to OoL as follows:
> > > >
> > > > “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at
> > > > Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> > > >
> > > > ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just
> > > > little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or
> > > > it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less
> > > > random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that
> > > > small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules
> > > > could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules,
> > > > you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells
> > > > would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become
> > > > more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of
> > > > replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so
> > > > big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or
> > > > environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be
> > > > its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically,
> > > > the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those
> > > > conditions.’”
> > > >
> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> > > >
> > > > (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> > > >
> > > > THE IRONY
> > > >
> > > > A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how
> > > > life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> > > >
> > > > A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant
> > > > expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent
> > > > critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as
> > > > unqualified to comment.
> > > >
> > > > THE COMPLETE IRONY
> > > >
> > > > The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a
> > > > Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> > > >
> > > > The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a
> > > > satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or
> > > > shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the
> > > > tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little
> > > > bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random
> > > > collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> > > >
> > > > To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with
> > > > more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> > > >
> > > > The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of
> > > > replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass
> > > > in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> > > >
> > > The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor.
> > > Currently about the only thing that we can expect is to figure out the
> > > most likely scenario of how life came to be, but everyone knows that, it
> > > would only be the most likely scenario, and that since it only seems to
> > > have happened once, it could obviously have occurred in some less
> > > probable manner. What you have to deal with is what is around the gap,
> > > but you run from doing that. Life arose somehow, and that is what you
> > > have to deal with. You can claim that your designer did it, but is that
> > > the designer that you want to believe in? For the vast majority of
> > > anti-evolution biblical creationists the god responsible for the origin
> > > of life on earth is not the Biblical god. End of story. Until that
> > > changes the Top Six best evidences for IDiocy that killed IDiocy on TO
> > > (the origin of life is #3 of the Top Six) just means that you and most
> > > other bibilcal creationists are just out of luck. Science denial isn't
> > > going to do you any good when it is what is around the gaps that you
> > > really can't deal with.
> > >
> > > Ron Okimoto
> >
> > "The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor."
> >
> > In terms likelihood of arriving at an accepted theory? Yes, possibly.
> >
> > But one of the strongest for questioning the adequacy of natural causes
> > alone, because by definition it excludes natural selection. Which is the main
> > point of my OP.
> >
> ----------------------------------
>
> The search for the origin of life does exclude natural selection. It also
> excludes the germ theory of disease, the theory of gravity, and the
> reason men can't stand to see women cry.

My point wasn't clear: the particular appeal with OoL is that removing NS from the equation takes out of the discussion the presumption that NS can do anything, will do anything, QED. (The question of the veracity of NS is a separate discussion).

>
> While the religious have been stuffing god into gaps for millenia,
> many of those gaps have been eliminated, one by one, using science.
> Yet many still remain.
>
> Origin of life research merely highlights yet one more gap into which
> to shoehorn god. There's nothing particularly special about that gap.
>
> Scientists admit they don't know the answer but are studying it and
> creationists assert the problem is solved but present no evidence.
> So, what else is new?

The contention is this is not a case of the god-of-the-gaps, but growing research results (i.e. lack of) revealing a God-of-the-widening-gulf.

James Tour stumbled into this with sufficient related expertise to say, hang on a minute, you guys are blowing smoke. You could show that you're not also blowing smoke by addressing my argument:

Deamer endorses Dyson: “When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules”.

Swollen bags of garbage cut in two, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out. NS can't help you here, though nice try to appeal to NS-lite ("these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance.")

Random polymers are forming using racemic monomers, producing cross-linkages, interfering products, etc: i.e., garbage. The result is the most successful tar concentrators consume available building blocks at an increasing rate.

Over to you.

>
> --
> The Lord works in ways indistinguishable from the null hypothesis.

On 8/30/23 3:42 PM, Mark wrote:
> On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 1:20:22 AM UTC+10, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 8/30/23 4:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
>>> David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
>>>
>>> “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
>>>
>>> ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
>>> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
>>>
>>> (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
>>>
>>> THE IRONY
>>>
>>> A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
>>>
>>> A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
>> The two are not really comparable. Dyson was offering speculation on a
>> single step which might be involved in the origins of life. His
>> knowledge of thermodynamics qualifies him in that area. Tour was not
>> speaking about the origin of life at all, but about the *state of
>> research* in the origin of life. He has no experience in that area.
>>> THE COMPLETE IRONY
>>>
>>> The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
>>>
>>> The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
>>>
>>> To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
>>>
>>> The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
>> You really, REALLY need to learn the theory of evolution.
>>
>> The problem with the tornado in a junkyard is not that messy occurrences
>> such as that do not occur in evolution, but that they are not the *only*
>> thing that occurs in evolution. Evolution also has inheritance and
>> selection, or what you call magic.
>
> Think about what's happening in this scenario. Random polymers are forming using racemic monomers, with cross-linkages, interfering products, etc: i.e., garbage. The result is the most successful tar concentrators consume available building blocks at an increasing rate. A wave of the selection wand won't help here.
And what makes you think that is the only scenario? Organic chemistry
is very good at doing non-random.
--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

On Friday, 1 September 2023 at 03:45:22 UTC+3, Mark wrote:
> On Friday, September 1, 2023 at 12:35:21 AM UTC+10, Dexter wrote:
> > Mark wrote:
> >
> > > On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 8:30:21 PM UTC+10, RonO wrote:
> > > > On 8/30/2023 6:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
> > > > > David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article
> > > > > relating to OoL as follows:
> > > > >
> > > > > “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at
> > > > > Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> > > > >
> > > > > ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just
> > > > > little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or
> > > > > it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less
> > > > > random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that
> > > > > small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules
> > > > > could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules,
> > > > > you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells
> > > > > would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become
> > > > > more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of
> > > > > replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so
> > > > > big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or
> > > > > environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be
> > > > > its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically,
> > > > > the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those
> > > > > conditions.’”
> > > > >
> > https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> > > > >
> > > > > (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> > > > >
> > > > > THE IRONY
> > > > >
> > > > > A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how
> > > > > life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> > > > >
> > > > > A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant
> > > > > expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent
> > > > > critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as
> > > > > unqualified to comment.
> > > > >
> > > > > THE COMPLETE IRONY
> > > > >
> > > > > The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a
> > > > > Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> > > > >
> > > > > The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a
> > > > > satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or
> > > > > shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the
> > > > > tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little
> > > > > bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random
> > > > > collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> > > > >
> > > > > To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with
> > > > > more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> > > > >
> > > > > The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of
> > > > > replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass
> > > > > in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> > > > >
> > > > The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor..
> > > > Currently about the only thing that we can expect is to figure out the
> > > > most likely scenario of how life came to be, but everyone knows that, it
> > > > would only be the most likely scenario, and that since it only seems to
> > > > have happened once, it could obviously have occurred in some less
> > > > probable manner. What you have to deal with is what is around the gap,
> > > > but you run from doing that. Life arose somehow, and that is what you
> > > > have to deal with. You can claim that your designer did it, but is that
> > > > the designer that you want to believe in? For the vast majority of
> > > > anti-evolution biblical creationists the god responsible for the origin
> > > > of life on earth is not the Biblical god. End of story. Until that
> > > > changes the Top Six best evidences for IDiocy that killed IDiocy on TO
> > > > (the origin of life is #3 of the Top Six) just means that you and most
> > > > other bibilcal creationists are just out of luck. Science denial isn't
> > > > going to do you any good when it is what is around the gaps that you
> > > > really can't deal with.
> > > >
> > > > Ron Okimoto
> > >
> > > "The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor."
> > >
> > > In terms likelihood of arriving at an accepted theory? Yes, possibly.
> > >
> > > But one of the strongest for questioning the adequacy of natural causes
> > > alone, because by definition it excludes natural selection. Which is the main
> > > point of my OP.
> > >
> > ----------------------------------
> >
> > The search for the origin of life does exclude natural selection. It also
> > excludes the germ theory of disease, the theory of gravity, and the
> > reason men can't stand to see women cry.
> My point wasn't clear: the particular appeal with OoL is that removing NS from the equation takes out of the discussion the presumption that NS can do anything, will do anything, QED. (The question of the veracity of NS is a separate discussion).
>
> >
> > While the religious have been stuffing god into gaps for millenia,
> > many of those gaps have been eliminated, one by one, using science.
> > Yet many still remain.
> >
> > Origin of life research merely highlights yet one more gap into which
> > to shoehorn god. There's nothing particularly special about that gap.
> >
> > Scientists admit they don't know the answer but are studying it and
> > creationists assert the problem is solved but present no evidence.
> > So, what else is new?
>
> The contention is this is not a case of the god-of-the-gaps, but growing research results (i.e. lack of) revealing a God-of-the-widening-gulf.
>
> James Tour stumbled into this with sufficient related expertise to say, hang on a minute, you guys are blowing smoke. You could show that you're not also blowing smoke by addressing my argument:
>
> Deamer endorses Dyson: “When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules”.
>
> Swollen bags of garbage cut in two, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out. NS can't help you here, though nice try to appeal to NS-lite ("these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance.")
>
> Random polymers are forming using racemic monomers, producing cross-linkages, interfering products, etc: i.e., garbage. The result is the most successful tar concentrators consume available building blocks at an increasing rate.
>
> Over to you.
>
It is just plain statistics. Likelihood of auto- and cross-catalytic polymer
sets forming in such tar garbage bag is very low. But. Once formed in any
the presence is gradually becoming higher by spreading to other containers.
Whatever other polymers just form and decay randomly. So those lack
sustainability. The auto- and cross-catalytic reactions have sustainability..

On 8/31/2023 7:37 AM, Mark wrote:
> On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 8:30:21 PM UTC+10, RonO wrote:
>> On 8/30/2023 6:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
>>> David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
>>>
>>> “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
>>>
>>> ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
>>> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
>>>
>>> (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
>>>
>>> THE IRONY
>>>
>>> A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
>>>
>>> A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
>>>
>>> THE COMPLETE IRONY
>>>
>>> The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
>>>
>>> The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
>>>
>>> To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
>>>
>>> The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
>>>
>> The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor.
>> Currently about the only thing that we can expect is to figure out the
>> most likely scenario of how life came to be, but everyone knows that, it
>> would only be the most likely scenario, and that since it only seems to
>> have happened once, it could obviously have occurred in some less
>> probable manner. What you have to deal with is what is around the gap,
>> but you run from doing that. Life arose somehow, and that is what you
>> have to deal with. You can claim that your designer did it, but is that
>> the designer that you want to believe in? For the vast majority of
>> anti-evolution biblical creationists the god responsible for the origin
>> of life on earth is not the Biblical god. End of story. Until that
>> changes the Top Six best evidences for IDiocy that killed IDiocy on TO
>> (the origin of life is #3 of the Top Six) just means that you and most
>> other bibilcal creationists are just out of luck. Science denial isn't
>> going to do you any good when it is what is around the gaps that you
>> really can't deal with.
>>
>> Ron Okimoto
>
> "The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor."
>
> In terms likelihood of arriving at an accepted theory? Yes, possibly.
>
> But one of the strongest for questioning the adequacy of natural causes alone, because by definition it excludes natural selection. Which is the main point of my OP.
This is your major problem. Science denial isn't going to do you any
good in this case because you do not want your god to fill this gap.
Science has obvious limits. You have to deal with what science can do
within those limits. Have you read the Origin of Spcies? Natural
selection can happen once you have a lifeform that replicates
imperfectly. Natural selection is a fact of nature. No one should deny
that it exists in nature at this very moment. There is no reason to
deny natural selection when it has been occurring for over 3 billion
years since the origin of the first lifeforms.
What you want to deny is materialism. Science is stuck with the fact
that it can only deal with things that exist. The ID perps claimed that
they could do the same science as everyone else and demonstrate the
existence of their god. In order to do that, the ID perps needed to use
the same functional materialism that science has to use in order to
work. Science just can't deal with things until you can demonstrate in
some way that it exists.
It is stupid to use the origin of life in order to deny the science that
you need to deny because the designer of the origin of life on earth is
not your Biblical designer. That is what finally killed IDiocy on TO.
Most of the existing IDiots on this planet do not want to believe in the
designer responsible for the Top Six god-of-the-gaps IDiotic evidence.
The god that fills those gaps is not Biblical enough for most Biblical
creationists.
>
> "You can claim that your designer did it, but is that the designer that you want to believe in?
>
> What sort of designer do you believe is implied/demonstrated by this claim?
>
All I claim is that the God that I believe in is responsible for the
creation. The Bible is obviously not anything that can be used to
understand the creation. Science is just the best means for
understanding nature that we have come up with. Whatever we eventually
find out is what the creation is likely to be. Saint Augustine pointed
out that it was stupid to use the Bible in order to deny things that we
could obviously figure out about nature by ourselves. Your type of
denial has been known to be stupid for millennia. The Bible was written
by young earth creationists. They had adopted the flat earth geocentric
cosmology of their neighbors who had been civilized for a longer period
of time. Just imagine what the description of the creation would be
like if the Bible were written today. Even if we wrote the Bible today
we could be wrong about a lot of what might be put into it due to
incomplete knowledge and the authors ignorance of what the creation
actually is.
Humans wrote the Bible. "Inspired" is the term that you need to
acknowledge as it is applied to what is written in the Bible.
Ron Okimoto

On Friday, September 1, 2023 at 2:45:22 PM UTC+10, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 8/30/23 3:42 PM, Mark wrote:
> > On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 1:20:22 AM UTC+10, Mark Isaak wrote:
> >> On 8/30/23 4:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
> >>> David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> >>>
> >>> “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> >>>
> >>> ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> >>> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> >>>
> >>> (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> >>>
> >>> THE IRONY
> >>>
> >>> A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> >>>
> >>> A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
> >> The two are not really comparable. Dyson was offering speculation on a
> >> single step which might be involved in the origins of life. His
> >> knowledge of thermodynamics qualifies him in that area. Tour was not
> >> speaking about the origin of life at all, but about the *state of
> >> research* in the origin of life. He has no experience in that area.
> >>> THE COMPLETE IRONY
> >>>
> >>> The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> >>>
> >>> The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> >>>
> >>> To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> >>>
> >>> The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> >> You really, REALLY need to learn the theory of evolution.
> >>
> >> The problem with the tornado in a junkyard is not that messy occurrences
> >> such as that do not occur in evolution, but that they are not the *only*
> >> thing that occurs in evolution. Evolution also has inheritance and
> >> selection, or what you call magic.
> >
> > Think about what's happening in this scenario. Random polymers are forming using racemic monomers, with cross-linkages, interfering products, etc: i.e., garbage. The result is the most successful tar concentrators consume available building blocks at an increasing rate. A wave of the selection wand won't help here.
> And what makes you think that is the only scenario? Organic chemistry
> is very good at doing non-random.

Do you mean that nucleotides spontaneously forming a polymer have chemical affinities which influence their ordering, thus making the sequence non-random?

> --
> Mark Isaak
> "Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
> doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

On Friday, September 1, 2023 at 9:15:23 PM UTC+10, RonO wrote:
> On 8/31/2023 7:37 AM, Mark wrote:
> > On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 8:30:21 PM UTC+10, RonO wrote:
> >> On 8/30/2023 6:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
> >>> David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> >>>
> >>> “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> >>>
> >>> ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> >>> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> >>>
> >>> (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> >>>
> >>> THE IRONY
> >>>
> >>> A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> >>>
> >>> A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
> >>>
> >>> THE COMPLETE IRONY
> >>>
> >>> The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> >>>
> >>> The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> >>>
> >>> To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> >>>
> >>> The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> >>>
> >> The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor.
> >> Currently about the only thing that we can expect is to figure out the
> >> most likely scenario of how life came to be, but everyone knows that, it
> >> would only be the most likely scenario, and that since it only seems to
> >> have happened once, it could obviously have occurred in some less
> >> probable manner. What you have to deal with is what is around the gap,
> >> but you run from doing that. Life arose somehow, and that is what you
> >> have to deal with. You can claim that your designer did it, but is that
> >> the designer that you want to believe in? For the vast majority of
> >> anti-evolution biblical creationists the god responsible for the origin
> >> of life on earth is not the Biblical god. End of story. Until that
> >> changes the Top Six best evidences for IDiocy that killed IDiocy on TO
> >> (the origin of life is #3 of the Top Six) just means that you and most
> >> other bibilcal creationists are just out of luck. Science denial isn't
> >> going to do you any good when it is what is around the gaps that you
> >> really can't deal with.
> >>
> >> Ron Okimoto
> >
> > "The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor."
> >
> > In terms likelihood of arriving at an accepted theory? Yes, possibly.
> >
> > But one of the strongest for questioning the adequacy of natural causes alone, because by definition it excludes natural selection. Which is the main point of my OP.
> This is your major problem. Science denial isn't going to do you any
> good in this case because you do not want your god to fill this gap.
> Science has obvious limits. You have to deal with what science can do
> within those limits. Have you read the Origin of Spcies? Natural
> selection can happen once you have a lifeform that replicates
> imperfectly. Natural selection is a fact of nature. No one should deny
> that it exists in nature at this very moment. There is no reason to
> deny natural selection when it has been occurring for over 3 billion
> years since the origin of the first lifeforms.
>
> What you want to deny is materialism. Science is stuck with the fact
> that it can only deal with things that exist. The ID perps claimed that
> they could do the same science as everyone else and demonstrate the
> existence of their god. In order to do that, the ID perps needed to use
> the same functional materialism that science has to use in order to
> work. Science just can't deal with things until you can demonstrate in
> some way that it exists.
>
> It is stupid to use the origin of life in order to deny the science that
> you need to deny because the designer of the origin of life on earth is
> not your Biblical designer. That is what finally killed IDiocy on TO.
> Most of the existing IDiots on this planet do not want to believe in the
> designer responsible for the Top Six god-of-the-gaps IDiotic evidence.
> The god that fills those gaps is not Biblical enough for most Biblical
> creationists.

My point wasn't clear: the particular appeal with OoL is that removing NS from the equation takes out of the discussion the presumption that NS can do anything, will do anything, QED. The question of the veracity and scope of NS is a separate discussion. I'm not questioning the mechanism per se, but rather its limitations. I've written computer simulations modeling mutation and selection evolve "bugs", quite fun to watch on the screen, and a demonstration of bounded adaptation, aka microevolution. As for science denial--I'm appealing to science and its discoveries about the mechanisms and complexities of life, alongside science's demonstrations of how this cannot be reproduced or explained. Science? I'm a fan--and prepared to go where the evidence leads.

Swollen bags of garbage cut in two, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out. NS can't help you here, though nice try to appeal to NS-lite ("these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance.")

Random polymers are forming using racemic monomers, producing cross-linkages, interfering products, etc: i.e., garbage. The result is the most successful tar concentrators consume available building blocks at an increasing rate.

Feel free to address my argument if you're able.

> >
> > "You can claim that your designer did it, but is that the designer that you want to believe in?
> >
> > What sort of designer do you believe is implied/demonstrated by this claim?
> >
> All I claim is that the God that I believe in is responsible for the
> creation. The Bible is obviously not anything that can be used to
> understand the creation. Science is just the best means for
> understanding nature that we have come up with. Whatever we eventually
> find out is what the creation is likely to be. Saint Augustine pointed
> out that it was stupid to use the Bible in order to deny things that we
> could obviously figure out about nature by ourselves. Your type of
> denial has been known to be stupid for millennia. The Bible was written
> by young earth creationists. They had adopted the flat earth geocentric
> cosmology of their neighbors who had been civilized for a longer period
> of time. Just imagine what the description of the creation would be
> like if the Bible were written today. Even if we wrote the Bible today
> we could be wrong about a lot of what might be put into it due to
> incomplete knowledge and the authors ignorance of what the creation
> actually is.
>
> Humans wrote the Bible. "Inspired" is the term that you need to
> acknowledge as it is applied to what is written in the Bible.
>
> Ron Okimoto

On Friday, 1 September 2023 at 14:45:22 UTC+3, Mark wrote:
> On Friday, September 1, 2023 at 9:15:23 PM UTC+10, RonO wrote:
> > On 8/31/2023 7:37 AM, Mark wrote:
> > > On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 8:30:21 PM UTC+10, RonO wrote:
> > >> On 8/30/2023 6:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
> > >>> David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> > >>>
> > >>> “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> > >>>
> > >>> ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> > >>> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> > >>>
> > >>> (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> > >>>
> > >>> THE IRONY
> > >>>
> > >>> A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> > >>>
> > >>> A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
> > >>>
> > >>> THE COMPLETE IRONY
> > >>>
> > >>> The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> > >>>
> > >>> The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> > >>>
> > >>> To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> > >>>
> > >>> The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> > >>>
> > >> The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor.
> > >> Currently about the only thing that we can expect is to figure out the
> > >> most likely scenario of how life came to be, but everyone knows that, it
> > >> would only be the most likely scenario, and that since it only seems to
> > >> have happened once, it could obviously have occurred in some less
> > >> probable manner. What you have to deal with is what is around the gap,
> > >> but you run from doing that. Life arose somehow, and that is what you
> > >> have to deal with. You can claim that your designer did it, but is that
> > >> the designer that you want to believe in? For the vast majority of
> > >> anti-evolution biblical creationists the god responsible for the origin
> > >> of life on earth is not the Biblical god. End of story. Until that
> > >> changes the Top Six best evidences for IDiocy that killed IDiocy on TO
> > >> (the origin of life is #3 of the Top Six) just means that you and most
> > >> other bibilcal creationists are just out of luck. Science denial isn't
> > >> going to do you any good when it is what is around the gaps that you
> > >> really can't deal with.
> > >>
> > >> Ron Okimoto
> > >
> > > "The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor."
> > >
> > > In terms likelihood of arriving at an accepted theory? Yes, possibly.
> > >
> > > But one of the strongest for questioning the adequacy of natural causes alone, because by definition it excludes natural selection. Which is the main point of my OP.
> > This is your major problem. Science denial isn't going to do you any
> > good in this case because you do not want your god to fill this gap.
> > Science has obvious limits. You have to deal with what science can do
> > within those limits. Have you read the Origin of Spcies? Natural
> > selection can happen once you have a lifeform that replicates
> > imperfectly. Natural selection is a fact of nature. No one should deny
> > that it exists in nature at this very moment. There is no reason to
> > deny natural selection when it has been occurring for over 3 billion
> > years since the origin of the first lifeforms.
> >
> > What you want to deny is materialism. Science is stuck with the fact
> > that it can only deal with things that exist. The ID perps claimed that
> > they could do the same science as everyone else and demonstrate the
> > existence of their god. In order to do that, the ID perps needed to use
> > the same functional materialism that science has to use in order to
> > work. Science just can't deal with things until you can demonstrate in
> > some way that it exists.
> >
> > It is stupid to use the origin of life in order to deny the science that
> > you need to deny because the designer of the origin of life on earth is
> > not your Biblical designer. That is what finally killed IDiocy on TO.
> > Most of the existing IDiots on this planet do not want to believe in the
> > designer responsible for the Top Six god-of-the-gaps IDiotic evidence.
> > The god that fills those gaps is not Biblical enough for most Biblical
> > creationists.
> My point wasn't clear: the particular appeal with OoL is that removing NS from the equation takes out of the discussion the presumption that NS can do anything, will do anything, QED. The question of the veracity and scope of NS is a separate discussion. I'm not questioning the mechanism per se, but rather its limitations. I've written computer simulations modeling mutation and selection evolve "bugs", quite fun to watch on the screen, and a demonstration of bounded adaptation, aka microevolution. As for science denial--I'm appealing to science and its discoveries about the mechanisms and complexities of life, alongside science's demonstrations of how this cannot be reproduced or explained. Science? I'm a fan--and prepared to go where the evidence leads.
>
> Swollen bags of garbage cut in two, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out. NS can't help you here, though nice try to appeal to NS-lite ("these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance.")
>
> Random polymers are forming using racemic monomers, producing cross-linkages, interfering products, etc: i.e., garbage. The result is the most successful tar concentrators consume available building blocks at an increasing rate.
>
> Feel free to address my argument if you're able.
>
I already did above, you just can't read.

On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 9:50:20 PM UTC+10, MarkE wrote:
> David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
>
> “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
>
> ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
>
> (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
>
> THE IRONY
>
> A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
>
> A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
>
> THE COMPLETE IRONY
>
> The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
>
> The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
>
> To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
>
> The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.

Good grief, there's more to Dyson's flight of fancy, which Deamer no doubt read. Imagine the apoplexy if a creationist offered the following kind of "explanation" (emphasis is mine):

“Yes. Which we do know exist. That's stage one of life, this garbage bag stage, where evolution is happening, but only on a statistical basis. I think it's right to call it pre-Darwinian, because Darwin himself did not use the word evolution; he was primarily interested in species, not in evolution as such.

“Well then, what happened next? Stage two is when you have parasitic RNA, when RNA happens to occur in some of these cells. THERE'S A LINKAGE, PERHAPS, BETWEEN METABOLISM AND REPLICATION IN THE MOLECULE ATP [in a garbage bag!]. We know ATP has a dual function. It is very important for metabolism, but it also is essentially a nucleotide. You only have to add two phosphates and it becomes a nucleotide. So it gives you a link between the two systems. PERHAPS ONE OF THESE GARBAGE BAGS HAPPENED TO DEVELOP ATP BY A RANDOM PROCESS. ATP is very helpful to the metabolism, so these cells multiplied and became very numerous and made large quantities of ATP. Then by chance this ATP formed the adenine nucleotide, which polymerized into RNA. You had then parasitic RNA inside these cells, forming a separate form of life, which was pure replication without metabolism. RNA COULD REPLICATE ITSELF. IT COULDN'T METABOLIZE, BUT IT COULD GROW QUITE NICELY.”

“Then the RNA invented viruses. RNA found a way to package itself in a little piece of cell membrane, and travel around freely and independently. Stage two of life has the GARBAGE BAGS STILL UNORGANIZED AND CHEMICALLY RANDOM, BUT WITH RNA ZOOMING AROUND in little packages we call viruses carrying genetic information from one cell to another. That is my version of the RNA world. It corresponds to what Manfred Eigen considered to be the beginning of life, which I regard as stage two. You have RNA living independently, replicating, traveling around, sharing genetic information between all kinds of cells. Then stage three, which I would say is the most mysterious, began when these two systems started to collaborate. IT BEGAN WHEN THE INVENTION OF THE RIBOSOME, WHICH TO ME IS THE CENTRAL MYSTERY. There’s a tremendous lot to be done with investigating the archaeology of the ribosome. I hope some of you people will do it.”

“Once the ribosome was invented, then the two systems, THE RNA WORLD AND THE METABOLIC WORLD, ARE COUPLED TOGETHER AND YOU GET MODERN CELLS. That's stage three, but still with the genetic information being shared, mostly by viruses traveling from cell to cell, so it is open source heredity. As Carl Woese described it, evolution could be very fast.”

https://www.edge.org/conversation/freeman_dyson-freeman-dyson-life-what-a-concept

On Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 7:50:20 AM UTC-4, MarkE wrote:
> David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
>
> “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
>
> ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
>
> (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
>
> THE IRONY
>
> A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
>
> A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
>
> THE COMPLETE IRONY
>
> The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
>
> The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
>
> To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
>
> The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.

First, I repeat a prior request. Please stop with the run-on line length.
Hit the return key every 60 or so characters. Otherwise, the quoting and
indentation mechanism screws up replies and things become quite
unreadable very quickly. It isn't just me. Usenet has had this standard
for decades. Please put in this minimal effort to improve communication.

Next, your point here seems to be to draw some contrast between those
who have pointed out that Tour lacks solid bona fides regarding OoL
research and Deamer citing someone else who doesn't have solid bona
fides in OoL research. Context is not your friend.

In your other thread, you reference Tour and you asserted that he has
expertise that is especially relevant to OoL research. Based on that
assertion of your, others responded that he actually doesn't have
especially relevant expertise in that field in as much as he has not
published in that specific field. It's a fair retort to your initial assertion,
and it's being made by people with arguably better qualifications than
Tour who nevertheless disclaim that their own expertise makes them
"experts" in OoL research.

You, and one insistent other, tried to paint refutations of your assertion
about the relevance of Tour's expertise as intellectual snobbery.
Nonsense. It was a refutation of your specific assertion. It is necessary
to ignore the context of your claim to paint their words the way you
do.

Further, you misrepresent the point of the above quote by Dyson. Deamer
isn't citing Dyson as an authority on OoL research. Rather, he is citing a
particular line of reasoning that contradicts an assertion that you and
others like to make. Specifically, you try to claim that there can be no
cases of the mechanism of natural selection prior to the emergence of
the first recognizable living cell. The author of the piece isn't the point,
so your claims about irony misfire. The point, which you really ought to
consider, is that the mechanism of natural selection can have a role in
changing the "odds" of a seemingly daunting combination of events.

There are many other scenarios relevant to possible steps in OoL that
can also involve differential reproductive success. And these can possibly
happen for stages prior to what most would consider to be the emergence
of the first recognizable living cell. I happen to think that the other lines
I have in mind are better, and think that Dyson's example is misleading
even though possibly involved in a modified way. Regardless, it succeeds
at illustrating the falsity of proclamations that NS can't happen prior
to the emergence of life.

On Friday, September 1, 2023 at 10:20:22 PM UTC+10, Öö Tiib wrote:
> On Friday, 1 September 2023 at 14:45:22 UTC+3, Mark wrote:
> > On Friday, September 1, 2023 at 9:15:23 PM UTC+10, RonO wrote:
> > > On 8/31/2023 7:37 AM, Mark wrote:
> > > > On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 8:30:21 PM UTC+10, RonO wrote:
> > > >> On 8/30/2023 6:49 AM, MarkE wrote:
> > > >>> David Deamer, an elder statesman of OoL I believe, concludes an article relating to OoL as follows:
> > > >>>
> > > >>> “I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:
> > > >>>
> > > >>> ‘You had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been oily or it might have been a metal oxide. And inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance. When a cell became so big that it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters, which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical machinery inside. Evolution could work under those conditions.’”
> > > >>> https://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance
> > > >>>
> > > >>> (Note: I’m not commenting on the content of the article itself.)
> > > >>>
> > > >>> THE IRONY
> > > >>>
> > > >>> A scientist from an unrelated field rattles off a just-so story on how life might have originated – and a leader in OoL quotes him approvingly.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> A scientist accomplished in an overlapping field with highly relevant expertise (James Tour) launches a serious, sustained, specific, coherent critique of OoL research progress and claims -- and is dismissed as unqualified to comment.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> THE COMPLETE IRONY
> > > >>>
> > > >>> The analogy of “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747” is dismissed as invalid.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> The analogy of a tornado in a molecular junkyard is offered as a satisfactory summary of how life may have begun: “...cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental disturbance” (the tornado, in case you missed it), acting on “the garbage bag model…little bags of some kind of cell membrane…inside you had a more or less random collection of organic molecules” (you get the idea).
> > > >>>
> > > >>> To be clear, swollen bags of garbage divided, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> The claim that “these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance...” is a masterclass in sleight-of-hand. Either that or belief in real magic.
> > > >>>
> > > >> The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor.
> > > >> Currently about the only thing that we can expect is to figure out the
> > > >> most likely scenario of how life came to be, but everyone knows that, it
> > > >> would only be the most likely scenario, and that since it only seems to
> > > >> have happened once, it could obviously have occurred in some less
> > > >> probable manner. What you have to deal with is what is around the gap,
> > > >> but you run from doing that. Life arose somehow, and that is what you
> > > >> have to deal with. You can claim that your designer did it, but is that
> > > >> the designer that you want to believe in? For the vast majority of
> > > >> anti-evolution biblical creationists the god responsible for the origin
> > > >> of life on earth is not the Biblical god. End of story. Until that
> > > >> changes the Top Six best evidences for IDiocy that killed IDiocy on TO
> > > >> (the origin of life is #3 of the Top Six) just means that you and most
> > > >> other bibilcal creationists are just out of luck. Science denial isn't
> > > >> going to do you any good when it is what is around the gaps that you
> > > >> really can't deal with.
> > > >>
> > > >> Ron Okimoto
> > > >
> > > > "The origin of life is one of the weakest of any scientific endeavor."
> > > >
> > > > In terms likelihood of arriving at an accepted theory? Yes, possibly.
> > > >
> > > > But one of the strongest for questioning the adequacy of natural causes alone, because by definition it excludes natural selection. Which is the main point of my OP.
> > > This is your major problem. Science denial isn't going to do you any
> > > good in this case because you do not want your god to fill this gap.
> > > Science has obvious limits. You have to deal with what science can do
> > > within those limits. Have you read the Origin of Spcies? Natural
> > > selection can happen once you have a lifeform that replicates
> > > imperfectly. Natural selection is a fact of nature. No one should deny
> > > that it exists in nature at this very moment. There is no reason to
> > > deny natural selection when it has been occurring for over 3 billion
> > > years since the origin of the first lifeforms.
> > >
> > > What you want to deny is materialism. Science is stuck with the fact
> > > that it can only deal with things that exist. The ID perps claimed that
> > > they could do the same science as everyone else and demonstrate the
> > > existence of their god. In order to do that, the ID perps needed to use
> > > the same functional materialism that science has to use in order to
> > > work. Science just can't deal with things until you can demonstrate in
> > > some way that it exists.
> > >
> > > It is stupid to use the origin of life in order to deny the science that
> > > you need to deny because the designer of the origin of life on earth is
> > > not your Biblical designer. That is what finally killed IDiocy on TO.
> > > Most of the existing IDiots on this planet do not want to believe in the
> > > designer responsible for the Top Six god-of-the-gaps IDiotic evidence..
> > > The god that fills those gaps is not Biblical enough for most Biblical
> > > creationists.
> > My point wasn't clear: the particular appeal with OoL is that removing NS from the equation takes out of the discussion the presumption that NS can do anything, will do anything, QED. The question of the veracity and scope of NS is a separate discussion. I'm not questioning the mechanism per se, but rather its limitations. I've written computer simulations modeling mutation and selection evolve "bugs", quite fun to watch on the screen, and a demonstration of bounded adaptation, aka microevolution. As for science denial--I'm appealing to science and its discoveries about the mechanisms and complexities of life, alongside science's demonstrations of how this cannot be reproduced or explained. Science? I'm a fan--and prepared to go where the evidence leads.
> >
> > Swollen bags of garbage cut in two, resealed, and injected with more garbage produce…only more garbage. AKA, garbage in, garbage out. NS can't help you here, though nice try to appeal to NS-lite ("these things could evolve without any kind of replication. It's a simple statistical inheritance.")
> >
> > Random polymers are forming using racemic monomers, producing cross-linkages, interfering products, etc: i.e., garbage. The result is the most successful tar concentrators consume available building blocks at an increasing rate.
> >
> > Feel free to address my argument if you're able.
> >
> I already did above, you just can't read.

You said:

"Likelihood of auto- and cross-catalytic polymer sets forming in such tar garbage bag is very low."

The opposite is true. The vast majority or reaction products in this random, messy mixture of chemicals will be anything but the necessary chains without branching or 2'-5' linkage.