15 open questions posed on origin of life

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 13, 2015

Intelligent Design, News, Origin Of Life}

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By working scientists. A friend writes to tell us: The International Institute for Advanced Studies (IIAS) (Web) Kizugawa, Kyoto, Japan, has proposed 15 open questions on the origin of life:

02. Why is the origin of life still a mystery?

Premise: Why is the origin of life still a mystery? Yes, we all in science accept 1924 Oparin’s idea that life on Earth originated from the inanimate matter via a series of chemical steps of increasing molecular complexity and functionality. However, the turning point nonlife-life has never been put into one experimental set up-actually it has never be clarified this from a conceptual point of view either. There are of course several hypotheses, and this plethora of ideas means already that we do not have a convincing one. The most popular is with the RNA-world prebiotic scenario, which has the advantage of providing on paper a theoretical series of imaginary events, each however with an unimaginably small probability (be the prebiotic production of a self-replicating RNA, and its eventual transformation into a catalyst for DNA and independently for protein synthesis-why should this happen, and what about the genetic code? Aside from the problem of experimental implementation, don’t you think we lack (until now) the capability of intellectually conceiving how the turning point really happened?

The friend note that it is an honest list of open questions posed by scientists working in the field.

And asks, Does anyone know of a similar list of open questions in evolution, provided by supporters of evolution? Readers?

See also: Why origin of life is such a problem

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Comments

Mung: Aren’t living thing just like snowflakes? While organisms and snowflakes both dissipate energy along a gradient, they are quite different processes.Zachriel_{June 18, 2015
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I don't understand why Zachriel thinks thermodynamics can't explain life. Aren't living thing just like snowflakes? So what was operating there at the beginning of life that led to molecules not just going to minimum potential energy? Magic?Mung_{June 18, 2015
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Zachriel's position cannot account for biology.Virgil Cain_{June 18, 2015
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EugeneS: Control, logic, integrated circuitry, organization cannot be explained using just entropy. Quite so! While any explanation of biology has to be consistent with thermodynamic laws, thermodynamics doesn't provide an explanation of biology.Zachriel_{June 18, 2015
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Control, logic, integrated circuitry, organization cannot be explained using just entropy. All of these are instantiated into physicality, there is no way they can arise out of chaos by themselves naturalistically. There is zero evidence for it.EugeneS_{June 18, 2015
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EugeneS: multiple layers in living systems logic and control The question concerned entropy.Zachriel_{June 17, 2015
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Zachriel, Snowflakes are a consequence of the laws of nature at work (motion of the system towards minimal potential energy states). There is no control in this process. Even the use of the word 'process' in this context is debatable. There is no pragmatic gain here, nor is any logic involved on top of physicality. Life is hugely different in that at multiple layers in living systems logic and control are involved that actively steer the living system towards homeostasis, i.e. non-zero pragmatic utility, against the overarching tendency of non-living matter towards minimum potential energy (so obvious in snowflakes). Life cannot be simply reduced to physicality.EugeneS_{June 17, 2015
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Mung #2. Thanks for the pointer to the book. Already ordered it.EugeneS_{June 17, 2015
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Good luck with that. ;)Virgil Cain_{June 17, 2015
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I don't see Zachriels as opponents, I think they just need to be educated is all.Mung_{June 17, 2015
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Zachriel's position can't account for snowflakes, nor water. It is always enlightening when our opponents use the very things that need an explanation to do the explaining.Virgil Cain_{June 17, 2015
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Evolutionary Problem: The evolution from ectothermy to endothermy.Mung_{June 17, 2015
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harry: When energy decreases entropy that is because it was constructively harnessed in some way, even in the cases of crystallization and snowflakes. If you call the natural formation of snowflakes to be "constructive" and the process "harnessing", then sure. In what way is the formation of snowflakes constructive? constructive, serving a useful purpose harness, control and make use ofZachriel_{June 16, 2015
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Zachriel,
We take issue with this specific statement of yours: “Unharnessed energy only increases entropy”
When energy decreases entropy that is because it was constructively harnessed in some way, even in the cases of crystallization and snowflakes. Unharnessed, energy, everybody knows, breaks things instead of constructing things. Harnessed or unharnessed, energy never mindlessly and accidentally brings about significant functional complexity. That is why intelligent agency must have been a causal factor in the origin of life, the most functionally complex phenomenon known to us. Science has to remain rational to remain true science. The irrationality of atheism is perverting science. That is the one thing you have successfully demonstrated. By the way, you still haven't answered my questions.harry_{June 16, 2015
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harry: You make assertions that refute a straw man of your own creation instead. No. We take issue with this specific statement of yours: “Unharnessed energy only increases entropy”? We have addressed each of your points in turn. Every physical process, natural and artificial, increases overall entropy. Many physical processes, natural and artificial, can result in local regions of reduced entropy by exporting entropy to the environment. It's true of ice forming on a lake, or ice forming in a refrigerator. It's true of life, or of the most complex machine ever devised. Mung: As do all the examples you gave of decreases in entropy. That's right. They all involve a decrease in entropy in one place by exporting entropy to the surroundings.Zachriel_{June 16, 2015
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Zachriel: Both processes increase overall entropy. As do all the examples you gave of decreases in entropy. Zachriel: All physical processes result in an overall increase in entropy. Glad you're finally on board. Zachriel: All physical processes result in an increase in overall entropy, including snowflakes... Where do all these increases take place if not locally? Non-locally? Remotely? The mind of God? Where?Mung_{June 16, 2015
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Zachriel, You continue to dodge answering my questions. You make assertions that refute a straw man of your own creation instead. Just admit it, you don't have a clue.harry_{June 16, 2015
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harry: The difference between the harnessed energy of a nuclear power plant and the unharnessed energy released by a nuclear explosion. Both processes increase overall entropy. harry: Inanimate matter nearly always does nothing more than increase in entropy. All physical processes result in an overall increase in entropy. Entropy can be reduced locally, both by natural and artificial means. harry: Yes, there are instances of naturally occurring mechanisms that constructively harness energy in a very simple and limited way such that a decrease in entropy occurs ... That's contrary to your claim above. harry: None of these exceptions are known to give rise to functional complexity. That wasn't your claim, or our objection. harry: all the evidence we have been able to gather about the observable Universe indicates that life on Earth is a startling, striking exception to that fact. No. All physical processes result in an increase in overall entropy, including snowflakes, including life, including the best efforts of intelligent bipeds. So you retract your statement that "Unharnessed energy only increases entropy"?Zachriel_{June 16, 2015
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Zachriel, Energy, without a mechanism to constructively harness it, increases entropy. The examples of this are too numerous to mention, so just consider one example: The difference between the harnessed energy of a nuclear power plant and the unharnessed energy released by a nuclear explosion. At one time the Earth was just as lifeless as the moon. Many sound as though they think the increasing entropy of the sun is some kind of explanation for the rise of life on Earth, in spite of the many lifeless environments known to us that receive an abundance of solar energy. As Isaac Asimov put it:
Remove the sun, and the human brain would not have developed.... And in the billions of years that it took for the human brain to develop, the increase in entropy that took place in the sun was far greater; far, far greater than the decrease that is represented by the evolution required to develop the human brain. -- In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics You Can’t Break Even, Smithsonian Institute Journal, June, 1970
Inanimate matter nearly always does nothing more than increase in entropy. Yes, there are instances of naturally occurring mechanisms that constructively harness energy in a very simple and limited way such that a decrease in entropy occurs, but these only bring about functionless, operationally meaningless decreases in entropy which are often very temporary, such as the case of snowflakes you mentioned as though that proved something. None of these exceptions are known to give rise to functional complexity. That matter inexorably increases in entropy is so overwhelmingly the case that it is theorized that the ultimate fate of the Universe is to reach "thermodynamic equilibrium" or "maximum entropy," or "heat death." Call it whatever you want. It is a fact that unharnessed energy increases entropy. So far, all the evidence we have been able to gather about the observable Universe indicates that life on Earth is a startling, striking exception to that fact. There are no known naturally occurring mechanisms that constructively harness energy such that functional complexity is brought about, yet the most functionally complex phenomenon in the Universe, so far as we know, is life on Earth. It is absolutely ridiculous to assume the Earth being an open system receiving energy from the sun explains that. So, what did happen here on Earth? What appears to have happened was a very creative harnessing of energy far beyond what can happen naturally, such that, as Hawking put it, "an ordered system" came about that could "sustain itself against the tendency to disorder," and could "reproduce itself." For the nanotechnology of life to come about and be sustained required a very precise, complex environment, just like software requires a computer in which to execute. The massive functional complexity of life could only have arisen in an extremely unlikely environment, one far more unlikely to come about mindlessly and accidentally than are the environments provided by computers and automated factories. What naturally occurring, energy-harnessing mechanisms decreased entropy to the extent that an environment mindlessly and accidentally became so precisely ordered that it was capable of producing and sustaining digital information-based, self-replicating nanotechnology light years beyond our own? That required the involvement of intelligent agency, just as is required for computers and automated factories to come about. Mindless, inanimate matter obviously does not have within itself the ability to assemble itself into environments far more complex than those provided by computers and automated factories. Again:
... where is your example of unharnessed energy producing significant functional complexity instead of just increasing entropy? Or for that matter, where is your example of mindlessly and accidentally harnessed energy producing significant functional complexity? And how would a mechanism capable of harnessing energy such that significant functional complexity is produced come to be other than by intelligent agency? Please provide me with a list of such phenomena known to exhibit significant functional complexity that all came about mindlessly and accidentally. And, no, you can’t include life, that is the phenomenon the origin of which is under consideration.
harry_{June 16, 2015
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Mung: need I remind you that by your own admission [@31] there was a local increase in entropy? Then something remarkable happens. The snow falls.Zachriel_{June 16, 2015
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Zachriel, need I remind you that by your own admission [@31] there was a local increase in entropy? If you want to maintain that there was both a local decrease in entropy and a local increase in entropy I can't stop you. But I can point out that it makes no sense.Mung_{June 15, 2015
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Mung: nor are they “local decreases in entropy.” Not sure why you think that. The locality in question is the crystal, the excess heat having dissipated. A snow crystal has much lower entropy than the water vapor from which it formed.Zachriel_{June 15, 2015
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Zachriel, So they are neither "examples of decreases in entropy," nor are they "local decreases in entropy." No Maxwell's Demon for you!Mung_{June 15, 2015
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Mung: So the “local” decrease in entropy is compensated for by a “non-local” increase in entropy where, the other side of the universe? No. The entropy is exported locally. Snow crystal formation is an exothermic reaction. The crystal is formed from supercooled supersaturated air, and is actually warmer than the surrounding air. The crystal grows by deposition, with the excess heat dissipated into the surroundings. ETA: Snowflake formation is fastest at the tips of the spikes where heat removal is fastest, which is also closest to the source of new molecules in the surrounding air. But the spikiest also melt more easily reducing the temperature differential with the surrounding air. This limits the length of the spikes, so that branches form.Zachriel_{June 15, 2015
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Zachriel: They are local decreases in entropy. You just make this stuff up do you? So the "local" decrease in entropy is compensated for by a "non-local" increase in entropy where, the other side of the universe?Mung_{June 15, 2015
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Mung: No they are not. They are local decreases in entropy.Zachriel_{June 15, 2015
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Zachriel: they are examples of decreases in entropy No they are not.Mung_{June 15, 2015
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Design is a natural process.Virgil Cain_{June 15, 2015
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harry: You provided instances of that which has a mechanism to harness energy. If by harnessing a mechanism, you include natural processes, then sure. Not sure what your point would be then. Lots of things, natural and artificial, can result in local decreases in entropy.Zachriel_{June 15, 2015
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You didn't provide counter examples. You provided instances of that which has a mechanism to harness energy. To be more precise, where is your example of unharnessed energy producing significant functional complexity instead of just increasing entropy? Or for that matter, where is your example of mindlessly and accidentally harnessed energy producing significant functional complexity? And how would a mechanism capable of harnessing energy such that significant functional complexity is produced come to be other than by intelligent agency? Please provide me with a list of such phenomena known to exhibit significant functional complexity that all came about mindlessly and accidentally. And, no, you can't include life, that is the phenomenon the origin of which is under consideration.harry_{June 15, 2015
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