Origin Of Life

Just heard on the Caribbean’s traditional 7:00 am BBC morning news, award of a Nobel Prize to James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells The Nobel press release remarks: The 2013 Nobel Prize honours three scientists who have solved the mystery of how the cell organizes its transport system. Each cell is a factory that produces and exports molecules. For instance, insulin is manufactured and released into the blood and chemical signals called neurotransmitters are sent from one nerve cell to another. These molecules are transported around the cell in small packages called vesicles. The three Nobel Laureates have discovered the molecular Read More ›

It seems we can now put together at least a draft outline composite response to the UD pro-darwinism essay challenge of a year ago, based on Jerad’s remarks at 70 in the one-year anniversary thread, and a key concession by EL at 149 in the same. In the interests of moving the discussion on the merits forward [I am open to improved drafts or a full form submission . . . ], first here is the Smithsonian chart of the Tree of Life, the context: Now, PART I: ____________ EL, 149: >> “As yet we have no empirically supported naturalistic theory of abiogenesis.” >> ____________ For PART II, we will need to highlight that Jerad is responding to some earlier remarks Read More ›

There are three main approaches to current origin-of-life studies – metabolism-first, replication-first, and membrane-first. The problem with each of these approaches is that they ignore the reality of irreducible complexity in self-replicating system.
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