If you don’t believe that all complex life on earth depends on a single, freakish accidental event …

_{Denyse O'Leary

September 8, 2014

Origin Of Life}

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But according to Nautilus, “life on the planet Earth may owe its existence to one freakish event”:

There are many possible explanations, but one of these has recently gained a lot of ground. It tells of a prokaryote that somehow found its way inside another, and formed a lasting partnership with its host. This inner cell—a bacterium—abandoned its free-living existence and eventually transformed into the mitochondria. These internal power plants provided the host cell with a bonanza of energy, allowing it to evolve in new directions that other prokaryotes could never reach.

If this story is true, and there are still those who doubt it, then all eukaryotes—every flower and fungus, spider and sparrow, man and woman—descended from a sudden and breathtakingly improbable merger between two microbes. They were our great-great-great-great-…-great-grandparents, and by becoming one, they laid the groundwork for the life forms that seem to make our planet so special. The world as we see it (and the fact that we see it at all; eyes are a eukaryotic invention) was irrevocably changed by that fateful union—a union so unlikely that it very well might not have happened at all, leaving our world forever dominated by microbes, never to welcome sophisticated and amazing life like trees, mushrooms, caterpillars, and us. More.

This is, of course, belongs to the “just by chance” school of thought on origin of life. Of course, symbiosis probably sometimes occurred. But put in this grandiose way, the theory suffers from the same limitations that all such theorizing about human history does. (For example, if George Washington had never been born, other Americans would never have thought of the idea of a democratic republic …)

More sophisticated approaches to history, of life or humans or nations, tend to assume that things follow certain patterns, triggered at times by individuals or events—but not simply at random.

Anyway, for more on “pure chance” theories of origin of life, check out: Can all the numbers for life’s origin just happen to fall into place?

and

Origin of life: Could it all have come together in one very special place?

Anyway, this new theory sure won’t be lonely. See: Maybe if we throw enough models at the origin of life… some of them will stick? Just look at all the ones that have been thrown!

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Comments

"Want to play poker AB? " Nah. Since you don't exist, that would be virtual poker.Acartia_bogart_{September 8, 2014
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Want to play poker AB? :)bornagain77_{September 8, 2014
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BA77: "Acartia_bogart, it is interesting to note in Dr. Behe’s recent vindication of his ‘voodoo statistic’ by empirical research,,," It is interesting to note that I can prove that the probability of you being born is effectively zero using the same voodoo math that Mr. Behe has used to prove that complexity is effectively impossible. And I must admit, I am borrowing the concept from someone else. Six billion people in the world. The odds of both of your parents meeting up on the specific day that they met? Effectively zero. And the odds that the specific ovum from your mother (1 of 400,000 potential follicles) and one specific sperm cell from your father (I don't even know how many hundreds of millions that your father produced, and wasted before that lucky one), would get together are, again, effectively zero. So, the probability of an organism as complex as BA77 is, well, let's call it zero. I think that I will call this the one BA77CC. Given that Querius knows so much more about probability than I do, I will let him tell us what the probability is. But I am pretty sure that it makes Behe's 10^20 seem like a certainty.Acartia_bogart_{September 8, 2014
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A_B: "No, symbiosis, absolutely frequently occurred. Termites can’t digest wood without them. We can’t digest our food without our gut bacteria. Legumes cannot fix nitrogen without them. Many corals cannot survive without them." You are correct that symbiosis exists all over the living world. However, please give me evidence of an example of intra-cellular symbiosis other than the proposed event being discussed.Moose Dr_{September 8, 2014
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So much for materialists looking down on Christians for having faith!tjguy_{September 8, 2014
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Acartia_bogart, it is interesting to note in Dr. Behe's recent vindication of his 'voodoo statistic' by empirical research,,,
Diverse mutational pathways converge on saturable chloroquine transport via the malaria parasite’s chloroquine resistance transporter - Robert L. Summers - March 17, 2014 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/10/1322965111 A Key Inference of The Edge of Evolution Has Now Been Experimentally Confirmed - Michael Behe - July 14, 2014 (first of a three part essay) Excerpt: However, at the time the book's chief, concrete example,,, was an inference, not yet an experimentally confirmed fact.,, the deduction hadn't yet been nailed down in the lab. Now it has, thanks to Summers et al. 2014. It took them years to get their results because they had to painstakingly develop a suitable test system where the malarial protein could be both effectively deployed and closely monitored for its relevant activity,,, Using clever experimental techniques they artificially mutated the protein in all the ways that nature has, plus in ways that produced previously unseen intermediates. One of their conclusions is that a minimum of two specific mutations are indeed required for the protein to be able to transport chloroquine.,,, The need for multiple mutations neatly accounts for why the development of spontaneous resistance to chloroquine is an event of extremely low probability -- approximately one in a hundred billion billion (1 in 10^20) malarial cell replications -- as the distinguished Oxford University malariologist Nicholas White deduced years ago. The bottom line is that the need for an organism to acquire multiple mutations in some situations before a relevant selectable function appears is now an established experimental fact. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/07/a_key_inference087761.html
,,,It is interesting to note that Darwinists, instead of citing any empirical evidence of their own to refute Dr. Behe, tried to find fault in the mathematics, whilst Dr. Behe focused on the empirical evidence. Regardless of this gross deficiency in empirical evidence for Darwinists, and their empirically disconnected single minded focus on 'mathematical fantasy', Darwinists soon learned not to ever gamble with Dr. Behe:
How Many Ways Are There to Win at Sandwalk? – Michael Behe – August 15, 2014 Excerpt: At University of Toronto professor Laurence Moran’s blog Sandwalk, named for Darwin’s famous “thinking path,” I’ve followed a discussion of the evolution of de novo chloroquine resistance by malaria (which I wrote about here). The exchange has touched on a few issues that seem to confuse people easily. One is how we should view the probability of winning something. In questioning my malaria numbers, a commenter remarked that it’s misleading to focus retrospectively on a single event, such as winning a familiar game of cards, to calculate the odds of that exact arrangement of cards and declare it to be the likelihood of winning at the game. After all, there may be very many other ways to win, too. In order to correctly calculate the odds, he explained, one would have to take into account all of the ways to win, not just a single hand. I agree completely. Fortunately, in the huge number of malaria cells exposed to chloroquine, all the proverbial hands have already been dealt many times over, so we can confidently calculate the odds from the statistics.,,, The bottom line for all of them is that the acquisition of chloroquine resistance is an event of statistical probability 1 in 10^20.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08/how_many_ways_a088981.html
Thus AB, you are in the very unfavorable position of, without experimental support, claiming that a 1 in 10^20 statistic derived directly from experimental work, is a 'voodoo statistic'. In what should be needless to say, if sneering at a direct empirical result is the best you can do to refute it, and you have no experimental work of you own by which to refute the empirical result that Dr. Behe cited, then this is extremely bad news for Darwinists to put it mildly! Since, as far as the science itself is concerned, to quote Feynman,,,
The Scientific Method - Richard Feynman - video Quote: 'If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY
AB you also ask,,
"what does it, (the extreme rarity of protein binding sites), have to do with endosymbiosis?
And what would nails, bolts, nuts, and fasteners, have to do with building houses, cars, airplanes and computers? of supplemental note: It is interesting to note that Chloroquine Resistance, as hard as it is for Darwinian processes to account for, is not even a gain in functional complexity for the malaria parasite in the first place but is a loss of functional complexity for the parasite.
Metabolic QTL Analysis Links Chloroquine Resistance in Plasmodium falciparum to Impaired Hemoglobin Catabolism - January, 2014 Summary: Chloroquine was formerly a front line drug in the treatment of malaria. However, drug resistant strains of the malaria parasite have made this drug ineffective in many malaria endemic regions. Surprisingly, the discontinuation of chloroquine therapy has led to the reappearance of drug-sensitive parasites. In this study, we use metabolite quantitative trait locus analysis, parasite genetics, and peptidomics to demonstrate that chloroquine resistance is inherently linked to a defect in the parasite's ability to digest hemoglobin, which is an essential metabolic activity for malaria parasites. This metabolic impairment makes it harder for the drug-resistant parasites to reproduce than genetically-equivalent drug-sensitive parasites, and thus favors selection for drug-sensitive lines when parasites are in direct competition. Given these results, we attribute the re-emergence of chloroquine sensitive parasites in the wild to more efficient hemoglobin digestion. http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1004085
Verse and Music:
John 1:3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. Redeemed - Big Daddy Weave http://myktis.com/songs/redeemed/
bornagain77_{September 8, 2014
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Axel: "“The likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability of developing one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster)..." I was wondering when someone would bring The Behe's voodoo statistics into the discussion. But what does it have to do with endosymbiosis?Acartia_bogart_{September 8, 2014
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Nothing builds itself, unless you are a Darwinist. Darwinists believe in dirt because, you see, dirt did it. Dirt can do anything. It can even create itself out of nothing. This is why we are dirt worshipers. We are made of the dust of the stars. We are star dust. We should be proud to be just dust, mother Earth and all that jazz.Mapou_{September 8, 2014
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Did the Nautilus writer forget that other "freakish" idea -- that the first living organism accidently came into existence with every machine needed to metabolize, transport nutrients, sense the environment variously, move, replicate, find energy, expel wastes, avoid destruction, repair damage, transport oxidant, avoid harmful molecular uptake, support internal communication, process energy, avoid damage and conserve all such functions post-replication. Actually a holy idea for the materialist. For them, A Monster Event at the most significant point in time and space, very humbling but humility not in the cards with them.groovamos_{September 8, 2014
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"It tells of a prokaryote that somehow found its way inside another, and formed a lasting partnership with its host." lol. ok, can someone please explain to me what happened at the first cell division?Mung_{September 8, 2014
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It tells of a prokaryote that somehow found its way inside another, and formed a lasting partnership with its host.
It should have said: “ ... and somehow formed a lasting partnership with its host.”, because the heritability of this 'freakish accidental event' is in IMHO the utterly improbable part.Box_{September 8, 2014
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“The likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability of developing one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the entire world in the past 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety (just 2 binding sites being generated by accident) in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable.” Michael J. Behe PhD. (from page 146 of his book “Edge of Evolution”) Is that not one of the comical passages you've ever read in your life?Axel_{September 8, 2014
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Semi related:
Still Awaiting Engagement: A Reply to Robert Bishop on Darwin's Doubt - Paul Nelson - September 8, 2014 Excerpt: "Neo-Darwinian evolution is uniformitarian in that it assumes that all process works the same way, so that evolution of enzymes or flower colors can be used as current proxies for study of evolution of the body plan. It erroneously assumes that change in protein coding sequence is the basic cause of change in developmental program; and it erroneously assumes that evolutionary change in body plan morphology occurs by a continuous process. All of these assumptions are basically counterfactual. This cannot be surprising, since the neo-Darwinian synthesis from which these ideas stem was a pre-molecular biology concoction focused on population genetics and adaptation natural history, neither of which have any direct mechanistic import for the genomic regulatory systems that drive embryonic development of the body plan." Eric Davidson - 2011 ,, it is difficult to miss Davidson's thrust. As far as the origin of animal body plans is concerned, neo-Darwinism isn't incomplete or insufficient. It is dead wrong.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/still_awaiting_089641.html
bornagain77_{September 8, 2014
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Further notes on problems with endosymbiosis:
On the Origin of Mitochondria: Reasons for Skepticism on the Endosymbiotic Story Jonathan M. - January 10, 2012 Excerpt: While we find examples of similarity between eukaryotic mitochondria and bacterial cells, other cases also reveal stark differences. In addition, the sheer lack of a mechanistic basis for mitochondrial endosymbiotic assimilation ought to -- at the very least -- give us reason for caution and the expectation of some fairly spectacular evidence for the claim being made. At present, however, such evidence does not exist -- and justifiably gives one cause for skepticism. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/01/on_the_origin_o054891.html Bacteria Too Complex To Be Primitive Eukaryote Ancestors - July 2010 Excerpt: “Bacteria have long been considered simple relatives of eukaryotes,” wrote Alan Wolfe for his colleagues at Loyola. “Obviously, this misperception must be modified.... There is a whole process going on that we have been blind to.”,,, For one thing, Forterre and Gribaldo revealed serious shortcomings with the popular “endosymbiosis” model – the idea that a prokaryote engulfed an archaea and gave rise to a symbiotic relationship that produced a eukaryote. http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev201007.htm#20100712b Bacterial Protein Acetylation: The Dawning of a New Age - July 2012 Excerpt: Bacteria have long been considered simple relatives of eukaryotes. Obviously, this misperception must be modified. From the presence of a cytoskeleton to the packaging of DNA to the existence of multiple post-translational modifications, bacteria clearly implement highly sophisticated mechanisms to regulate diverse cellular processes precisely. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/07/bacterial-protein-acetylation-dawning.html
Even more problematic for evolutionists, than the unexplained gap between prokaryote and eukaryote cells, is that even within the 'bacterial world' there are found to be enormous unexplained gaps of completely unique genes within each different type of bacteria which has had its DNA sequenced:
ORFan Genes Challenge Common Descent – Paul Nelson – video with references http://www.vimeo.com/17135166
and since unguided Darwinian processes are found to be grossly insufficient to account for the orgination of even a single protein (or gene),,,
Evolution vs. Functional Proteins ("Mount Improbable") - Doug Axe and Stephen Meyer – Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rgainpMXa8 Doug Axe Knows His Work Better Than Steve Matheson Excerpt: Regardless of how the trials are performed, the answer ends up being at least half of the total number of password possibilities, which is the staggering figure of 10^77 (written out as 100, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000). Armed with this calculation, you should be very confident in your skepticism, because a 1 in 10^77 chance of success is, for all practical purposes, no chance of success. My experimentally based estimate of the rarity of functional proteins produced that same figure, making these likewise apparently beyond the reach of chance. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/06/doug_axe_knows_his_work_better035561.html
and since unguided Darwinian processes are also grossly insufficient to account for the orgination of protein binding sites,,
"The likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability of developing one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the entire world in the past 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety (just 2 binding sites being generated by accident) in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable." Michael J. Behe PhD. (from page 146 of his book "Edge of Evolution")
Then it is easy to see why people doubt that endosymbiosis ever occurred. Shoot, it is easy to see why people doubt that unguided Darwinian evolution ever did anything at all besides degrade pre-existing information! Darwinists simply have no empirical evidence that it is possible for unguided processes to produce even trivial levels of the unfathomed complety we find in life.bornagain77_{September 8, 2014
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A few notes on endosymbiosis:
Did DNA replication evolve twice independently? – Koonin Excerpt: However, several core components of the bacterial (DNA) replication machinery are unrelated or only distantly related to the functionally equivalent components of the archaeal/eukaryotic (DNA) replication apparatus. http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/27/17/3389 An enormous gap exists between prokaryote cells and eukaryote cells. - Jerry Bergman Excerpt: A crucial difference between prokaryotes and eukaryotes is the means they use to produce ATP. All life produces ATP by three basic chemical methods only: oxidative phosphorylation, photophosphorylation, and substrate-level phosphorylation (Lim, 1998, p. 149). In prokaryotes ATP is produced both in the cell wall and in the cytosol by glycolysis. In eukaryotes most ATP is produced in chloroplasts (for plants), or in mitochondria (for both plants and animals). No means of producing ATP exists that is intermediate between these four basic methods and no transitional forms have ever been found that bridge the gap between these four different forms of ATP production. The machinery required to manufacture ATP is so intricate that viruses are not able to make their own ATP. They require cells to manufacture it and viruses have no source of energy apart from cells. http://www.trueorigin.org/atp.asp ATP Synthase: The power plant of the cell - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI8m6o0gXDY Mitochondria - Molecular Machine - Powerhouse Of The Cell – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrS2uROUjK4
Of related interest, is the highly sophisticated, extremely precise, organization of ATP production in mitochondria:
Your Rotary Engines Are Arranged in Factories - August 2011 Excerpt: As if ATP synthase was not amazing enough, a team of scientists in Germany now tells us they are arranged in rows with other equipment to optimize performance. From electron micrographs of intact mitochondria, they were able to detect the rotary engines of ATP synthase and other parts of the respiratory chain. Their diagram in an open-source paper in PNAS looks for all the world like a factory.,,, “We propose that the supramolecular organization of respiratory chain complexes as proton sources and ATP synthase rows as proton sinks in the mitochondrial cristae ensures optimal conditions for efficient ATP synthesis.” The authors had virtually nothing to say about how this might have evolved, noting only that the structure is “conserved during evolution” in every sample they examined (3 species of fungi including yeast, potato, and mammal). What this means is a lack of evolution over nearly two billion years, in the standard evolutionary timeline. http://crev.info/content/110817-your_rotary_engines_are_arranged_in_factories These Molecular Sorting Machines Cooperate With Each Other in a “Complex Topology” - 2012 Excerpt: Even minute errors in the composition of the inner mitochondrial membrane can lead to severe metabolic derangements, which can have an especially negative impact on the energy-hungry muscle and nerve cells. In order to function, the cellular generators depend on the support of numerous highly specialized membrane proteins in the inner mitochondrial membrane. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/03/these-molecular-sorting-machines.html
Of related interest to 'factories' in the cell:
Endoplasmic Reticulum: Scientists Image 'Parking Garage' Helix Structure in Protein-Making Factory - July 2013 Excerpt: The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the protein-making factory within (eukaryotic) cells consisting of tightly stacked sheets of membrane studded with the molecules that make proteins. In a study published July 18th by Cell Press in the journal Cell, researchers have refined a new microscopy imaging method to visualize exactly how the ER sheets are stacked, revealing that the 3D structure of the sheets resembles a parking garage with helical ramps connecting the different levels. This structure allows for the dense packing of ER sheets, maximizing the amount of space available for protein synthesis within the small confines of a cell. "The geometry of the ER is so complex that its details have never been fully described, even now, 60 years after its discovery," says study author Mark Terasaki of the University of Connecticut Health Center. "Our findings are likely to lead to new insights into the functioning of this important organelle.",,, ,, this "parking garage" structure optimizes the dense packing of ER sheets and thus maximizes the number of protein-synthesizing molecules called ribosomes within the restricted space of a cell. When a cell needs to secrete more proteins, it can reduce the distances between sheets to pack even more membrane into the same space. Think of it as a parking garage that can add more levels as it gets full.,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130718130617.htm
bornagain77_{September 8, 2014
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Acartia_bogart: I can well accept the endosymbiontic theory for mitochondria and chloroplasts. But certainly it does not explain the emergence of eukaryotes. The transition from prokaryotes to eukaryotes is almost as big and unexplained as the transition from non living matter to prokaryotes. In terms of functional information and, probably, in terms of everything else.gpuccio_{September 8, 2014
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I have to say that endosymbiosis is one of the less objectionable scenerios in the materialist mythos. However to suggest only one freakish event is required in the materialist origins myth is misleading; literally billions upon billions are required. For example, the ribosome somehow has to happen.Jehu_{September 8, 2014
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Acartia_bogart:
The idea that mitochondria and chloroplasts are the result of symbiotic bacteria is not new.
It is not a testable concept. Not yet anyway. Also endosymbiosis doesn't account for the nucleus. And without that you don't have eukaryotes.Joe_{September 8, 2014
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Of course, symbiosis probably sometimes occurred.
No, symbiosis, absolutely frequently occurred. Termites can't digest wood without them. We can't digest our food without our gut bacteria. Legumes cannot fix nitrogen without them. Many corals cannot survive without them. The idea that mitochondria and chloroplasts are the result of symbiotic bacteria is not new. In both cases they have DNA that is different than the host cell, suggesting a different ancestry than the host. As well, their DNA is circular, reminiscent of prokaryotic DNA.Acartia_bogart_{September 8, 2014
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