Try this. Seriously, *This!* Try this:
What is the most complex non-life?
Probably a virus. Yes a virus. Viruses do not
technically meet the definition of life.
Technically.
So step down from there: What is the most
complex non-living material/compound, other
than viruses?
Prions? Crystals?
What?
The point is, if and when you identify the
most complex example of non living things,
you just identified the gap that must be
bridged in order to produce life.
Right?
People tend to think of life as a starting
point when in all seriousness it's part of
a spectrum.
For real.
Life if part of a spectrum.
There's lots & lots of amazingly complex
structures out there that aren't alive. And
if you look at the most complex of them all,
and compare them to the least complex life
forms, THEN you start seeing where the
missing pieces have to fit.
What am I saying?
I'm saying that if you want to understand the
origins of life, stop looking at life. Start
looking at non living forms.
Arkalen wrote:
The alkaline hydrothermal vent hypothesis doesn't involve modern
alkaline hydrothermal vents, in fact it relies on the assumption the
chemistry would have worked out differently in an acidic,
non-oxygenated ocean.
It's Faith-Based.
If you study non life you study things that actually exist.
And I don't mean you begin with viruses or prions, either.
"Spectrum."
Create a "Complexity Spectrum" the way you might construct
a color spectrum >
Wait. That's not it.
"Electromagnetic Spectrum."
Because it doesn't begin with visible light, and it doesn't
even end there!
Who knows? Maybe if we framed life within a proper spectrum
is wouldn't end with our concept of life!
God?
Forms of intelligence we have yet to imagine?
That's pure speculation... speculating the spectrum... I
love it! I'm too clever by at least half! Or at least that's
what I say...
Okay, but properly framed within a spectrum, we certainly
don't start with life. We know that.
Where is such a spectrum published?
Arkalen wrote:
It's been done
Not by everyone, not here.
the gap was identified, and it's an unbelievably huge gulf
Not really. Pretty small, actually. Especially when you're
looking at the dividing line there. There's a genuine
argument over viruses, for example.
I think the alkaline hydrothermal vent theory is making good headway now
You're doing it again. Looking at life instead of non
life, even as you argue that you're not or at least
not so much (maybe just a little?).
I talked about the study of non life
but "what's the most complex non-living system" wasn't really the
foundational insight there. More like "is there a non-living system
that could generate energy like modern cells do".
As you recall, part of the dogma is that the conditions no
longer exist. That, the conditions were perfect for spawning
life, abiogenesis occurred then immediately got up and left,
presumably searching for tea...
If conditions persisted, abiogenesis should be observed!
So take the emphasis off of life.
Sorry, I thought you'd excluded viruses with the "step down from there"
bit. The gulf is still huge between viruses and cellular life but I
guess it's true the gulf between cellular life and nonlife is smaller if
you include them. The issue in terms of abiogenesis is that it's unclear whether they're true intermediates or if they arose after or parallel to cellular life.
Arkalen wrote:
JTEM wrote:
It's Faith-Based.
No, it's based on general knowledge of chemistry and the data we have
on early Earth conditions.
That is literally Faith-Based! Because you have no idea what
is required to spontaneously form life, or even if it were
ever possible. Abiogenesis is not the only game in town, not
even the only scientific game.
So it's based on beliefs. Plural.
If you study non life you study things that actually exist.
That can be true or false whether you study life or nonlife.
Working out abiogenesis is studying things that do not exist,
including the theorized environment... not to mention HOW
this environment could manage it.
Study non life is actually studying things that exist.
In this case while we no longer have an oxygen-less ocean we can
simulate such conditions when doing experiments; those experiments
involve things that actually exist.
If those experiments ever succeeded, which they haven't, that
would prove that Creationism is real. After all, it would be
an example of an intelligence bringing into existence life by
intent, by design. But it wouldn't and couldn't "Prove" that
it ever happened in nature.
I don't know if any such spectrum is explicitly published
Well there's your problem!
to my knowledge its contents are basically what you listed in your OP.
Oh, dude; I was woafully under performing there! We're talking
a HUGE spectrum, from the most basic forms of matter to the
most complex examples of non-living structures... onto the very
simplest forms of life...
Think of it like the "Electromagnetic Spectrum." We're talking
BIG here, very BIG -- the opposite of small.
So not exactly warranting a paper
Lol! It's exactly what papers need to be written about!
THAT IS THE POINT!
It's an approach that needs to take over, be completed in order
to make any legitimate discoveries.
but maybe there are review papers or subject-matter papers with good
introductions that address your idea. I'll keep you posted if I look
it up.
Science is gone anyways. It's all driven by money: Grants.
If it doesn't have a direct military or financial benefit, it's
politics now.
So don't hold your breath.
On 09/04/2024 19:17, Arkalen wrote:
Sorry, I thought you'd excluded viruses with the "step down from
there" bit. The gulf is still huge between viruses and cellular life
but I guess it's true the gulf between cellular life and nonlife is
smaller if you include them. The issue in terms of abiogenesis is that
it's unclear whether they're true intermediates or if they arose after
or parallel to cellular life.
It's conceivable that all three models for the origins of viruses
(relicts of pre-cellular life, highly reduced descendants of parasitic
cells, rogue genes) are true, for different groups of viruses.
Mimivirus has a bigger genome and more genes than some cellular
organisms, including some genes involved in metabolism and in protein synthesis. This, and nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses in general,
seem to go some of the way in filling the gap between viruses in general
and cellular organisms.
On 09/04/2024 23:41, Ernest Major wrote:
On 09/04/2024 19:17, Arkalen wrote:
Sorry, I thought you'd excluded viruses with the "step down from
there" bit. The gulf is still huge between viruses and cellular life
but I guess it's true the gulf between cellular life and nonlife is
smaller if you include them. The issue in terms of abiogenesis is
that it's unclear whether they're true intermediates or if they arose
after or parallel to cellular life.
It's conceivable that all three models for the origins of viruses
(relicts of pre-cellular life, highly reduced descendants of parasitic
cells, rogue genes) are true, for different groups of viruses.
Mimivirus has a bigger genome and more genes than some cellular
organisms, including some genes involved in metabolism and in protein
synthesis. This, and nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses in general,
seem to go some of the way in filling the gap between viruses in
general and cellular organisms.
I agree with all of that. Just to clarify: when I talk about the huge
gulf in complexity between viruses and cellular life I'm not talking
about genome size, I'm talking very specifically about everything
cellular life is that viruses aren't, with cellular structure &
components, metabolism, translation mechanisms, all the resulting
behavior... I don't think even mimivirus begins to compete in that field
but I'm happy to learn more.
On 10/04/2024 07:58, Arkalen wrote:
On 09/04/2024 23:41, Ernest Major wrote:
On 09/04/2024 19:17, Arkalen wrote:
Sorry, I thought you'd excluded viruses with the "step down from
there" bit. The gulf is still huge between viruses and cellular life
but I guess it's true the gulf between cellular life and nonlife is
smaller if you include them. The issue in terms of abiogenesis is
that it's unclear whether they're true intermediates or if they
arose after or parallel to cellular life.
It's conceivable that all three models for the origins of viruses
(relicts of pre-cellular life, highly reduced descendants of
parasitic cells, rogue genes) are true, for different groups of viruses. >>>
Mimivirus has a bigger genome and more genes than some cellular
organisms, including some genes involved in metabolism and in protein
synthesis. This, and nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses in general,
seem to go some of the way in filling the gap between viruses in
general and cellular organisms.
I agree with all of that. Just to clarify: when I talk about the huge
gulf in complexity between viruses and cellular life I'm not talking
about genome size, I'm talking very specifically about everything
cellular life is that viruses aren't, with cellular structure &
components, metabolism, translation mechanisms, all the resulting
behavior... I don't think even mimivirus begins to compete in that
field but I'm happy to learn more.
I don't know what mimivirus does with all its genome. The following may
give an idea of how much is actually known. (It's more than I expected.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9133948/
Autotrophs have "complete" metabolisms. Heterotrophs need not. For
example, human lack the ability to synthesis essential amino acids and various essential metabolic cofactors (aka vitamins).
Parasites,
especially intracellular parasites (including parasitic plants, which
invade their hosts at the intracellular level) lack even more of the metabolism, scavenging chemicals from their hosts. With 1,000 or so
genes, mimivirus also has a truncated metabolism (I don't know how it compares to say Wolbachia, but with comparable numbers of genes a
comparison seems an obvious thing to investigate.) A difference between mimiviruses and intracellular parasites is that the latter have their
own cytoplasm, while the former utilises the host cytoplasm as a
substrate for its metabolism. That's still a big difference - but is it
the only difference in kind between mimiviruses and the simplest intracellular parasitic organisms? (According to the above paper
mimivirus has an immune system, which is something one could imagine a cellular organism lacking.)
One can imagine an intermediate condition - where the parasite has its
own cytoplasm, but also exports enzymes into the host cytoplasm to
extend its metabolism into the host cytoplasm. (At a grosser scale
venoms are somewhat analogous, but being associated with predation
rather than parasitism are purely destructive. However fungal parasites modify the behaviour of their hosts may be getting closer to this intermediate, though I suspect this also is more interference with the
host metabolism rather than parasitising it.)
A contrary hypothesis is that large parts of the mimivirus genome are
junk DNA - remnants not yet eliminated of a ancestral cellular state, or alternatively host genes accidentally incorporated in the mimivirus
genome, the retention of which is permitted by the large size of the mimivirus capsid. I would expect that mimiviruses, like bacteria, would
be under effective selection for the removal of superfluous DNA, but one could postulate a structural role - the excess DNA serving as packing to maintain the integrity of the capsid. There is a wide variety of genome
sizes among mimivirus and its relatives, which would seem to allow this hypothesis to be tested by looking for a correlation between capsid
volume and genome size.
On 10/04/2024 11:25, Ernest Major wrote:
On 10/04/2024 07:58, Arkalen wrote:
On 09/04/2024 23:41, Ernest Major wrote:
On 09/04/2024 19:17, Arkalen wrote:
Sorry, I thought you'd excluded viruses with the "step down from
there" bit. The gulf is still huge between viruses and cellular
life but I guess it's true the gulf between cellular life and
nonlife is smaller if you include them. The issue in terms of
abiogenesis is that it's unclear whether they're true intermediates
or if they arose after or parallel to cellular life.
It's conceivable that all three models for the origins of viruses
(relicts of pre-cellular life, highly reduced descendants of
parasitic cells, rogue genes) are true, for different groups of
viruses.
Mimivirus has a bigger genome and more genes than some cellular
organisms, including some genes involved in metabolism and in
protein synthesis. This, and nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses in
general, seem to go some of the way in filling the gap between
viruses in general and cellular organisms.
I agree with all of that. Just to clarify: when I talk about the huge
gulf in complexity between viruses and cellular life I'm not talking
about genome size, I'm talking very specifically about everything
cellular life is that viruses aren't, with cellular structure &
components, metabolism, translation mechanisms, all the resulting
behavior... I don't think even mimivirus begins to compete in that
field but I'm happy to learn more.
I don't know what mimivirus does with all its genome. The following
may give an idea of how much is actually known. (It's more than I
expected.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9133948/
Autotrophs have "complete" metabolisms. Heterotrophs need not. For
example, human lack the ability to synthesis essential amino acids and
various essential metabolic cofactors (aka vitamins).
I don't agree with that definition of "complete" metabolism. It's not
like any living thing can exist completely within itself, even
autotrophs live off of external energy & nutrient sources. I think a
better distinction between "full metabolism" and "not full metabolism"
might be that cells pair exergonic and endergonic reactions in order to
do work. In this they gain a measure of independence: they depend on the environment for the energy that powers the exergonic reactions and the
basic building blocks they're made of but there are many degrees of
freedom in how they can obtain them. This also both affords and requires
a level of complexity that things that don't pair reactions that way
don't have.
On 10/04/2024 12:00, Arkalen wrote:
On 10/04/2024 11:25, Ernest Major wrote:
On 10/04/2024 07:58, Arkalen wrote:
On 09/04/2024 23:41, Ernest Major wrote:
On 09/04/2024 19:17, Arkalen wrote:
Sorry, I thought you'd excluded viruses with the "step down from
there" bit. The gulf is still huge between viruses and cellular
life but I guess it's true the gulf between cellular life and
nonlife is smaller if you include them. The issue in terms of
abiogenesis is that it's unclear whether they're true
intermediates or if they arose after or parallel to cellular life.
It's conceivable that all three models for the origins of viruses
(relicts of pre-cellular life, highly reduced descendants of
parasitic cells, rogue genes) are true, for different groups of
viruses.
Mimivirus has a bigger genome and more genes than some cellular
organisms, including some genes involved in metabolism and in
protein synthesis. This, and nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses in
general, seem to go some of the way in filling the gap between
viruses in general and cellular organisms.
I agree with all of that. Just to clarify: when I talk about the
huge gulf in complexity between viruses and cellular life I'm not
talking about genome size, I'm talking very specifically about
everything cellular life is that viruses aren't, with cellular
structure & components, metabolism, translation mechanisms, all the
resulting behavior... I don't think even mimivirus begins to compete
in that field but I'm happy to learn more.
I don't know what mimivirus does with all its genome. The following
may give an idea of how much is actually known. (It's more than I
expected.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9133948/
Autotrophs have "complete" metabolisms. Heterotrophs need not. For
example, human lack the ability to synthesis essential amino acids
and various essential metabolic cofactors (aka vitamins).
I don't agree with that definition of "complete" metabolism. It's not
like any living thing can exist completely within itself, even
autotrophs live off of external energy & nutrient sources. I think a
better distinction between "full metabolism" and "not full metabolism"
might be that cells pair exergonic and endergonic reactions in order
to do work. In this they gain a measure of independence: they depend
on the environment for the energy that powers the exergonic reactions
and the basic building blocks they're made of but there are many
degrees of freedom in how they can obtain them. This also both affords
and requires a level of complexity that things that don't pair
reactions that way don't have.
Idly continuing to think on that and wondering why this pairing would
matter. I said "degrees of freedom" which I'm sure is part of the
answer. I wonder if something dumber is just storage capacity?
Thermodynamic reactions don't think and don't wait, there is no notion
of "the energy is here, you can do the reaction" let alone "the energy
will be here and it will balance out, you can do the reaction now"
(quantum phenomena excepted lol but that's a very small discrepancy they allow). There needs to be a very specific *way* one reaction causes
another reaction to occur and notions of "energy" are just an
abstraction we use to think about some constraints on which reaction can
make which other happen.
So basically if you're a system that relies on a lot of endergonic
reactions to happen you're kind of stuck. You need to not only exist in
an environment with lots of free energy, you need the *form* of that
free energy to very precisely match up to the specific endergonic
reactions you're doing. That's never going to happen is it, and if it
does you're completely stuck in that environment. You can't change
(different endergonic reactions might not work) and you can't leave (the second you leave the environment your endergonic reactions stop).
Compare that with a cell. It depends on its environment, that's for
sure! Cut it off from necessary energy and nutrient sources and it will
die as surely as our purely endergonic system would. But it won't die *immediately*. The very critical bit - the pairing of endergonic &
exergonic reactions - is all done inside instead of relying on the free energy of the environment, and even that's made much more flexible by
using ATP as a universal intermediate. That makes many more reactions possible, they don't need to be paired *exactly* you just need the
supply of ATP to stay stable overall. There's some storage capacity
there albeit not much. But what really changes the game is being able to
run your exergonic reactions off of otherwise-inactive molecules that
you *can* store indefinitely. Now you can go seconds, minutes, even
hours without critical environmental input! There's some breathing room
(ha) to move or adapt.
Maybe that storage ability alone is what changes the game really, it's
what makes the "degrees of freedom" thing possible & evolveable and
justifies the way we think of life as uniquely self-sustaining when we
know it's not. We go "life is self-sustaining. Is it? No, we die without oxygen right? We're only self-sustaining for a few minutes, that's
nothing" without realizing that the counterfactual is a microsecond so a minute is HUGE.
<snip>
On 10/04/2024 11:25, Ernest Major wrote:
On 10/04/2024 07:58, Arkalen wrote:
On 09/04/2024 23:41, Ernest Major wrote:
On 09/04/2024 19:17, Arkalen wrote:
Sorry, I thought you'd excluded viruses with the "step down from
there" bit. The gulf is still huge between viruses and cellular
life but I guess it's true the gulf between cellular life and
nonlife is smaller if you include them. The issue in terms of
abiogenesis is that it's unclear whether they're true intermediates
or if they arose after or parallel to cellular life.
It's conceivable that all three models for the origins of viruses
(relicts of pre-cellular life, highly reduced descendants of
parasitic cells, rogue genes) are true, for different groups of
viruses.
Mimivirus has a bigger genome and more genes than some cellular
organisms, including some genes involved in metabolism and in
protein synthesis. This, and nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses in
general, seem to go some of the way in filling the gap between
viruses in general and cellular organisms.
I agree with all of that. Just to clarify: when I talk about the huge
gulf in complexity between viruses and cellular life I'm not talking
about genome size, I'm talking very specifically about everything
cellular life is that viruses aren't, with cellular structure &
components, metabolism, translation mechanisms, all the resulting
behavior... I don't think even mimivirus begins to compete in that
field but I'm happy to learn more.
I don't know what mimivirus does with all its genome. The following
may give an idea of how much is actually known. (It's more than I
expected.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9133948/
Autotrophs have "complete" metabolisms. Heterotrophs need not. For
example, human lack the ability to synthesis essential amino acids and
various essential metabolic cofactors (aka vitamins).
I don't agree with that definition of "complete" metabolism. It's not
like any living thing can exist completely within itself, even
autotrophs live off of external energy & nutrient sources. I think a
better distinction between "full metabolism" and "not full metabolism"
might be that cells pair exergonic and endergonic reactions in order to
do work. In this they gain a measure of independence: they depend on the environment for the energy that powers the exergonic reactions and the
basic building blocks they're made of but there are many degrees of
freedom in how they can obtain them. This also both affords and requires
a level of complexity that things that don't pair reactions that way
don't have.
In that sense heterotrophs and autotrophs both have full metabolisms,
it's their energy sources that differ.
(and this is me now remembering that this is actually the whole point of
the word "metabolism" - the union of catabolism with anabolism)
Parasites, especially intracellular parasites (including parasitic
plants, which invade their hosts at the intracellular level) lack even
more of the metabolism, scavenging chemicals from their hosts. With
1,000 or so genes, mimivirus also has a truncated metabolism (I don't
know how it compares to say Wolbachia, but with comparable numbers of
genes a comparison seems an obvious thing to investigate.) A
difference between mimiviruses and intracellular parasites is that the
latter have their own cytoplasm, while the former utilises the host
cytoplasm as a substrate for its metabolism. That's still a big
difference - but is it the only difference in kind between mimiviruses
and the simplest intracellular parasitic organisms? (According to the
above paper mimivirus has an immune system, which is something one
could imagine a cellular organism lacking.)
I agree those are much more similar than I'd been thinking; I was
thinking of viruses as they are outside of the cell but you're right
that when you consider their activity inside of the cell then there's
much less reason to say that activity isn't "metabolism". Except for
that whole "meta" part of "metabolism" : does mimivirus do catabolism?
Do intracellular parasites?
I'll look it up after posting but I notice you point out the difference
that intracellular parasites have their own cytoplasm. I will hazard the guess that this means they have their own *membranes*, and further
hazard the guess that they use respiration to generate a proton motive
force across that membrane to regenerate ATP. I could see it if they
didn't, after all they can get ATP from the host cell can't they. But if
they do, that would be metabolism with the "meta".
One can imagine an intermediate condition - where the parasite has its
own cytoplasm, but also exports enzymes into the host cytoplasm to
extend its metabolism into the host cytoplasm. (At a grosser scale
venoms are somewhat analogous, but being associated with predation
rather than parasitism are purely destructive. However fungal
parasites modify the behaviour of their hosts may be getting closer to
this intermediate, though I suspect this also is more interference
with the host metabolism rather than parasitising it.)
A contrary hypothesis is that large parts of the mimivirus genome are
junk DNA - remnants not yet eliminated of a ancestral cellular state,
or alternatively host genes accidentally incorporated in the mimivirus
genome, the retention of which is permitted by the large size of the
mimivirus capsid. I would expect that mimiviruses, like bacteria,
would be under effective selection for the removal of superfluous DNA,
but one could postulate a structural role - the excess DNA serving as
packing to maintain the integrity of the capsid. There is a wide
variety of genome sizes among mimivirus and its relatives, which would
seem to allow this hypothesis to be tested by looking for a
correlation between capsid volume and genome size.
On 10/04/2024 11:37, Arkalen wrote:
On 10/04/2024 12:00, Arkalen wrote:
On 10/04/2024 11:25, Ernest Major wrote:
I don't know what mimivirus does with all its genome. The following
may give an idea of how much is actually known. (It's more than I
expected.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9133948/
Autotrophs have "complete" metabolisms. Heterotrophs need not. For
example, human lack the ability to synthesis essential amino acids
and various essential metabolic cofactors (aka vitamins).
I don't agree with that definition of "complete" metabolism. It's not
like any living thing can exist completely within itself, even
autotrophs live off of external energy & nutrient sources. I think a
better distinction between "full metabolism" and "not full
metabolism" might be that cells pair exergonic and endergonic
reactions in order to do work. In this they gain a measure of
independence: they depend on the environment for the energy that
powers the exergonic reactions and the basic building blocks they're
made of but there are many degrees of freedom in how they can obtain
them. This also both affords and requires a level of complexity that
things that don't pair reactions that way don't have.
Idly continuing to think on that and wondering why this pairing would
matter. I said "degrees of freedom" which I'm sure is part of the
answer. I wonder if something dumber is just storage capacity?
Thermodynamic reactions don't think and don't wait, there is no notion
of "the energy is here, you can do the reaction" let alone "the energy
will be here and it will balance out, you can do the reaction now"
(quantum phenomena excepted lol but that's a very small discrepancy
they allow). There needs to be a very specific *way* one reaction
causes another reaction to occur and notions of "energy" are just an
abstraction we use to think about some constraints on which reaction
can make which other happen.
So basically if you're a system that relies on a lot of endergonic
reactions to happen you're kind of stuck. You need to not only exist
in an environment with lots of free energy, you need the *form* of
that free energy to very precisely match up to the specific endergonic
reactions you're doing. That's never going to happen is it, and if it
does you're completely stuck in that environment. You can't change
(different endergonic reactions might not work) and you can't leave
(the second you leave the environment your endergonic reactions stop).
Compare that with a cell. It depends on its environment, that's for
sure! Cut it off from necessary energy and nutrient sources and it
will die as surely as our purely endergonic system would. But it won't
die *immediately*. The very critical bit - the pairing of endergonic &
exergonic reactions - is all done inside instead of relying on the
free energy of the environment, and even that's made much more
flexible by using ATP as a universal intermediate. That makes many
more reactions possible, they don't need to be paired *exactly* you
just need the supply of ATP to stay stable overall. There's some
storage capacity there albeit not much. But what really changes the
game is being able to run your exergonic reactions off of
otherwise-inactive molecules that you *can* store indefinitely. Now
you can go seconds, minutes, even hours without critical environmental
input! There's some breathing room (ha) to move or adapt.
Maybe that storage ability alone is what changes the game really, it's
what makes the "degrees of freedom" thing possible & evolveable and
justifies the way we think of life as uniquely self-sustaining when we
know it's not. We go "life is self-sustaining. Is it? No, we die
without oxygen right? We're only self-sustaining for a few minutes,
that's nothing" without realizing that the counterfactual is a
microsecond so a minute is HUGE.
Humans can't survive very long without external inputs (oxygen being the
most critical on the shortest time scales).
That may not be the case for
all species. Tardigrade tuns, bacterial cysts and plant seeds may be counterexamples. (They're not absolutely isolated from the environment,
but do they depend on inputs? or do they run a minimal maintenance
metabolism on stored reserves?)
A quick search informs me that norovirus can survive on surfaces for
weeks. Elsewhere, concern has been expressed at ancient pathogens,
including viruses, being released by melting permafrost, so some people
would seem to think that survival for thousands of years is possible.
<snip>
Arkalen wrote:
Sorry; your reply of "it's Faith-based" was to the following:
"The alkaline hydrothermal vent hypothesis doesn't involve modern
alkaline hydrothermal vents
So, nothing that exists.
in fact it relies on the assumption
Faith based.
I thought the "faith" you were referring to was "our partial knowledge
of the conditions of early Earth" but I take it you just meant the
hypothesis overall?
The faith begins with the belief that abiogenesis even happened.
Panspermia is equally as valid.
There's also creationism, yes.
It's also possible that abiogenesis did occur, on Mars or even
in another solar system, only for life to be deposited on Earth
via some cross contamination...
It's a variation on Panspermia, I know, but classical Panspermia
has life forming as a consequence of the Big Bang.
That seems to assume the only possible abiogenesis experiment is
"making a cell from scratch" but that's never how science or
experiments work. Experiments are always about testing some testable
aspect of a hypothesis. That would be like saying we never tested the
theory of relativity until we put GPS satellites into orbit or something.
A hypothesis explains the evidence/observations AND serves as the
basis of predictions. These predictions, in turn, lend themselves
to scientific testing -- experimentation, observation. This testing,
if failed, falsifies the hypothesis. There was less than
compelling confirmation of an Einstein prediction almost right
away, but it did take a few years before the first solid
scientific test confirmed a prediction.
However...
'Tis the nature of "Evidence" to support more than one conclusion.
A positive test result of a prediction IS CONSISTENT WITH a
hypothesis, but in almost all cases is also consistent with other explanations. So scientifically confirming a prediction of an
abiogenesis hypothesis isn't as convincing as some might believe.
Ideas are really only good or bad in comparison to other ideas,
not themselves.
Oh, dude; I was woafully under performing there! We're talking
a HUGE spectrum, from the most basic forms of matter to the
most complex examples of non-living structures... onto the very
simplest forms of life...
And I'm telling you most of that spectrum is empty, shows a huge gulf.
That would be more convincing if either one of us could point to
such a spectrum -- mapped out, scientifically. But we can't. So
you are arguing... what?
most viruses -> giant viruses, intracellular parasites? ->prokaryotic cells -> eukaryotic cells & higher...
My point from the beginning is that we need this spectrum laid out.
The work has to be done. BECAUSE it hasn't been.
The spectrum isn't empty, it's ignored.
I'll give you that I could add some things to your list, most notably
dissipative systems like tornadoes. But if you think the spectrum is
full then you should have no trouble at all populating it better than
you did there.
My point is that people are approaching this all wrong. That, nobody
has done this basic work.
Did you know homosexuality was originally classified as a mental
illness, a disorder? Do you know why they stopped? Because someone
got the idea to look for gay men who were NOT being treated for
mental health issues. Turns out that if the only gay men you ever
look at are the ones in therapy, you get the idea that all gay men
suffer from mental health issues!
What you are NOT looking at is important. Sometimes it's more
important than what you are looking at.
I mean, obviously every element of that spectrum has to have been
realized at some point, or abiogenesis couldn't have happened.
We're back to being faith-based. Abiogenesis is not the only
game in town. And even if it did happen somewhere on the
surface of a planet, this may not have been that planet! It
may literally be impossible to identify any environment that
had ever existed on this Earth which might've resulted in
abiogenesis... if it ever happened anywhere.
So switch the focus. Study things that are real, that actually
exist.
But you seem focused on only looking at things that exist now, so.
That's me, focused on what I can see instead of what doesn't
exist!
Arkalen wrote:
There are working assumptions. Abiogenesis is a working assumption
and it's wrong it assume that it's a fact, much less a well
accepted fact.
There are other ideas out there, including other scientific ideas.
There's a lot of interesting things, published online, on the
topic of a-priori assumptions. I know you're plenty familiar
with the concept and the pitfalls but maybe a reminder?
I would take it as a confirmation that you think things like "there
wasn't free oxygen in the atmosphere in that Hadean" are faith, but
then you say this:
If abiotic oxygen is a myth, life has already been discovered
on Mars. Ganymede. Europa.
the alkaline hydrothermal vent hypothesis is far and away superior to
all others in scope, specificity, evidential support and predictive
power.
Lol! Nothing is useful unless and until life is spontaneously
formed under laboratory conditions. AND THEN that's when the
debate begins! Because it won't "Prove" that it ever happened
in nature, only that it is not excluded.
It's especially superior to panspermia which isn't even so much a
hypothesis as a vague notion that doesn't actually explain the origin
of life.
Science is about stepping outside of yourself. That is literally
why it exists. Humans are so biased that we need a specific
set of rules, a process we must follow to keep up from latching
onto whatever our knee-jerk tells us.
Science was created to remove the human element.
You're insisting that the human element is what validates the
work.
There's also creationism, yes.
Sure. I figured that since you were talking about a spectrum of
complexity in things that actually exist from life to nonlife that the
context of this thread was naturalistic explanations.
The problem with Creationism is that abiogenesis, in a lab, would
be an example of same. So you're not escaping Creationism with
such goals, you're trying to validate it with an actual example!
Ironic, I know.
Sure, and the alkaline hydrothermal vent hypothesis is really good in
comparison to pretty much all of the other ideas on abiogenesis
Rather circular, that. And anyone proposing a different answer
would be definition be disagreeing with you.
What do you have in common with all of them? That's a start.
And I'm telling you most of that spectrum is empty, shows a huge gulf.
That would be more convincing if either one of us could point to
such a spectrum -- mapped out, scientifically. But we can't. So
you are arguing... what?
Here's me pointing->:
...water&lower -> Tornadoes, crystals, abiotic autocatalytic
reactions, alcohol -> polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, long alkanes
[huge gap] -> most viruses -> giant viruses, intracellularparasites? -> prokaryotic cells -> eukaryotic cells & higher...
This is usenet. The internet. I just read a claim that the exact same scientists who worked out the date, time & location of the eclipse
are the people who have determined that Gwobull Warbling is REEL!
Matter exists along a spectrum. All matter. Map it out. Speaking rhetorically. Not saying you should do it but I am saying that it
needs to be done. >
Shouldn't be too hard for you to fill that gap if what you're saying
is true.
And yet we both know that it's never been done.
The spectrum isn't empty, it's ignored.
How could we tell the difference ?
Someone could attempt to map out all life and non life: Matter.
The claim is that the very same nature which produced diamonds
and forms lithium can also produce life. This life is not a
separate and distinct form of matter, it lies along a spectrum.
This much is a fact.
To claim anything else is to argue divine intervention!
So if we understand that spectrum we understand life, and an
understanding of that spectrum begins with actually mapping
it out.
I mean, obviously every element of that spectrum has to have been
realized at some point, or abiogenesis couldn't have happened.
We're back to being faith-based. Abiogenesis is not the only
game in town. And even if it did happen somewhere on the
surface of a planet, this may not have been that planet! It
may literally be impossible to identify any environment that
had ever existed on this Earth which might've resulted in
abiogenesis... if it ever happened anywhere.
Nah it's not impossible, several perfectly cromulent candidates were
identified including the one it actually happened in which is alkaline
hydrothermal vents.
Nah, you're trolling.
So switch the focus. Study things that are real, that actually
exist.
I'm extremely confused. Are you saying there are tons of entities that
exist today that are intermediate steps between life and non-life such
that no complexity gap between the two exist, but also life didn't
start from non-life? Or all the entities are somewhere other than Earth?
Is that how you see the Electromagnetic Spectrum? As a series of
intermediate steps?
On 10/04/2024 11:00, Arkalen wrote:
On 10/04/2024 11:25, Ernest Major wrote:
On 10/04/2024 07:58, Arkalen wrote:
Parasites, especially intracellular parasites (including parasitic
plants, which invade their hosts at the intracellular level) lack
even more of the metabolism, scavenging chemicals from their hosts.
With 1,000 or so genes, mimivirus also has a truncated metabolism (I
don't know how it compares to say Wolbachia, but with comparable
numbers of genes a comparison seems an obvious thing to investigate.)
A difference between mimiviruses and intracellular parasites is that
the latter have their own cytoplasm, while the former utilises the
host cytoplasm as a substrate for its metabolism. That's still a big
difference - but is it the only difference in kind between
mimiviruses and the simplest intracellular parasitic organisms?
(According to the above paper mimivirus has an immune system, which
is something one could imagine a cellular organism lacking.)
I agree those are much more similar than I'd been thinking; I was
thinking of viruses as they are outside of the cell but you're right
that when you consider their activity inside of the cell then there's
much less reason to say that activity isn't "metabolism". Except for
that whole "meta" part of "metabolism" : does mimivirus do catabolism?
Do intracellular parasites?
I'll look it up after posting but I notice you point out the
difference that intracellular parasites have their own cytoplasm. I
will hazard the guess that this means they have their own *membranes*,
and further hazard the guess that they use respiration to generate a
proton motive force across that membrane to regenerate ATP. I could
see it if they didn't, after all they can get ATP from the host cell
can't they. But if they do, that would be metabolism with the "meta".
Microsporidia have lost the ability to generate their own ATP. The same
is said of Giardia.
I'm not sure you're even completely right on Microsporidia, cf this paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00436-020-06657-9
It does describe microsporidia as using the host's ATP, but also of
using glycolysis to generate ATP:
"These parasites have lost canonical mitochondria and the oxidative phosphorylation pathway, so that glycolysis is the only way to
generate ATP (Heinz et al. 2012; Corradi 2015). During the
intracellular development stage, microsporidia apparently do
not use their energy metabolism (Dolgikh et al. 2011) and
instead satisfy their energy demands by “stealing” ATP from
the host cell using unique nucleotide carriers acquired via
horizontal transfer from bacteria (Tsaousis et al. 2008;
Alexander et al. 2016)."
I agree those are much more similar than I'd been thinking; I was
thinking of viruses as they are outside of the cell but you're right
that when you consider their activity inside of the cell then there's
much less reason to say that activity isn't "metabolism". Except for
that whole "meta" part of "metabolism" : does mimivirus do
catabolism? Do intracellular parasites?
I'll look it up after posting but I notice you point out the
difference that intracellular parasites have their own cytoplasm. I
will hazard the guess that this means they have their own
*membranes*, and further hazard the guess that they use respiration
to generate a proton motive force across that membrane to regenerate
ATP. I could see it if they didn't, after all they can get ATP from
the host cell can't they. But if they do, that would be metabolism
with the "meta".
Microsporidia have lost the ability to generate their own ATP. The
same is said of Giardia.
Do you have a cite on that? This paper suggests that Giardia does have metabolism, using fermentation (but then maybe it varies by Giardia
species, this paper seems to be looking at one specific one):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC88984/
It explicitly describes it as generating its own ATP unless I'm
seriously missing something:
"However, certain eukaryotes, including Trichomonas spp., Entamoeba
spp., and Giardia spp., are characterized by their lack of mitochondria
and cytochrome-mediated oxidative phosphorylation. They rely on
fermentative metabolism (even when oxygen is present) for energy conservation. Glycolysis and its brief extensions generate ATP, with generation dependent only on substrate level phosphorylation."
As an aside I think it's really interesting that those are both
eukaryotes; it actually tracks with what I said earlier about how
"having their own cytoplasm" implied "having their own membranes" which implied "respiring across those membranes" because I realized later that
this applied to bacteria but not necessarily eukaryotes! Eukaryotes
respire using mitochondria, not their outer membrane. I still think it's interesting that the examples we'd find of endocellular parasites that (maybe, partially) gave up on metabolism would be eukaryotes. Does it
means bacteria don't do this? And if so why is it eukaryotes can give up
on metabolism more easily than bacteria can? It seems to intuitively
make sense that getting rid of organelles would be easier than getting
rid of a function that's fundamental to your cellular structure, but
seeing eukaryotic modularity potentially confirmed this way is still
pretty interesting.
It also means I still have doubts about the notion that intracellular parasites can be as simple as even giant viruses. It seems entirely
possible in principle don't get me wrong; my argument is that metabolism
is what separates cellular life's complexity from that of viruses so it
would perfectly track that cellular life that got rid of metabolism
could simplify to virus level. But the idea of *eukaryotes* - not just cellular life but *eukaryotic* cellular life containing organelles and
all that jazz even if mitochondria are no longer in their number - could
be as simple as viruses, giant as they might be, still begs disbelief
for me. Possible in principle but pretty remarkable to witness in
reality, and I'm not sure Microsporidia or Giardia reach that level.
Thank you for drawing my attention to the possibility, it's definitely something I'll look into more.
On 11/04/2024 14:41, Arkalen wrote:
I'm not sure you're even completely right on Microsporidia, cf this
paper:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00436-020-06657-9
It does describe microsporidia as using the host's ATP, but also of
using glycolysis to generate ATP:
"These parasites have lost canonical mitochondria and the oxidative
phosphorylation pathway, so that glycolysis is the only way to
generate ATP (Heinz et al. 2012; Corradi 2015). During the
intracellular development stage, microsporidia apparently do
not use their energy metabolism (Dolgikh et al. 2011) and
instead satisfy their energy demands by “stealing” ATP from
the host cell using unique nucleotide carriers acquired via
horizontal transfer from bacteria (Tsaousis et al. 2008;
Alexander et al. 2016)."
Microsporidia are a large group (1500 named species, but estimates of
the actual number runs to a million or more), so statements may be true
of some rather than all microsporidia. Repeating my original web search
I find
"Indeed, one group of microsporidia, the Enterocytozoonidae, has lost multiple proteins in the glycolytic pathway, effectively inhibiting ATP generation"
On 11/04/2024 14:41, Arkalen wrote:
I agree those are much more similar than I'd been thinking; I was
thinking of viruses as they are outside of the cell but you're right
that when you consider their activity inside of the cell then
there's much less reason to say that activity isn't "metabolism".
Except for that whole "meta" part of "metabolism" : does mimivirus
do catabolism? Do intracellular parasites?
I'll look it up after posting but I notice you point out the
difference that intracellular parasites have their own cytoplasm. I
will hazard the guess that this means they have their own
*membranes*, and further hazard the guess that they use respiration
to generate a proton motive force across that membrane to regenerate
ATP. I could see it if they didn't, after all they can get ATP from
the host cell can't they. But if they do, that would be metabolism
with the "meta".
Microsporidia have lost the ability to generate their own ATP. The
same is said of Giardia.
Do you have a cite on that? This paper suggests that Giardia does have
metabolism, using fermentation (but then maybe it varies by Giardia
species, this paper seems to be looking at one specific one):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC88984/
It explicitly describes it as generating its own ATP unless I'm
seriously missing something:
"However, certain eukaryotes, including Trichomonas spp., Entamoeba
spp., and Giardia spp., are characterized by their lack of
mitochondria and cytochrome-mediated oxidative phosphorylation. They
rely on fermentative metabolism (even when oxygen is present) for
energy conservation. Glycolysis and its brief extensions generate ATP,
with generation dependent only on substrate level phosphorylation."
I'd misinterpreted this, by not paying sufficient attention to the
context of a statement "but there is no ATP production".
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8404698/
In my defence, your mention of respiration above distracted me from considering non-mitochondrial (non-respiratory) ATP production. Not all intracellular parasites act as you proposed, but I overstepped the mark
in baldly stating that they don't produce ATP.
On 11/04/2024 14:41, Arkalen wrote:
As an aside I think it's really interesting that those are both
eukaryotes; it actually tracks with what I said earlier about how
"having their own cytoplasm" implied "having their own membranes"
which implied "respiring across those membranes" because I realized
later that this applied to bacteria but not necessarily eukaryotes!
Eukaryotes respire using mitochondria, not their outer membrane. I
still think it's interesting that the examples we'd find of
endocellular parasites that (maybe, partially) gave up on metabolism
would be eukaryotes. Does it means bacteria don't do this? And if so
why is it eukaryotes can give up on metabolism more easily than
bacteria can? It seems to intuitively make sense that getting rid of
organelles would be easier than getting rid of a function that's
fundamental to your cellular structure, but seeing eukaryotic
modularity potentially confirmed this way is still pretty interesting.
Your original mention of ATP production associated with membranes
pointed me in the direction of amitochrondriate eukaryotes for counterexamples (and I had a recollection of microsporidia as "energy parasites"). I don't see a reason to conclude that loss of ATP can't
also occur among parasitic prokaryotes.
My first candidate - Mycoplasma - came out negative; they do generate
ATP, but by an atypical path. Further searching however found putative
energy parasites among the acutalibacteraceous clostridia.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-023-01502-0
On the other, a paywalled paper reports that Chlamydia trachomatis was erroneously considered an obligate energy parasite for nearly 40 years. Google Scholar then finds what it perhaps the debunking paper.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1365-2958.1999.01464.x
Quite a number of prokaryotes are energy parasites. But we're looking
for obligate energy parasites (and even that may not be enough - one
could imagine a parasite which has some ATP-production capability, but
not enough to meet its needs).
It also means I still have doubts about the notion that intracellular
parasites can be as simple as even giant viruses. It seems entirely
possible in principle don't get me wrong; my argument is that
metabolism is what separates cellular life's complexity from that of
viruses so it would perfectly track that cellular life that got rid of
metabolism could simplify to virus level. But the idea of *eukaryotes*
- not just cellular life but *eukaryotic* cellular life containing
organelles and all that jazz even if mitochondria are no longer in
their number - could be as simple as viruses, giant as they might be,
still begs disbelief for me. Possible in principle but pretty
remarkable to witness in reality, and I'm not sure Microsporidia or
Giardia reach that level.
There's even a amitochondriate animal - Henneguya zschokkei. (Looking at
the Wikispedia article for this I discover that there is a hypothesis
that myxozoa evolved from transmissible cancers.)
However microsporidia and Giardia were brought up in response to your specific claim about ATP; not as a claim of comparable complexity to mimiviruses. Personally I doubt (pace the problem of generating an operational definition of complexity giving an ordering), even with the overlap in genome sizes and gene counts, that any cellular organisms are simpler than mimivirus, but it strikes me that this is some that needs
to be demonstrated rather than assumed. I would look among parasitic prokaryotes for candidates, with Wolbachia pipientis and Buchnera
aphidicola as first ports of call. (I suspect that treating these two
clades as single species in incorrect, and each of these is comprised of
many species.)
Based on the overlap in genome sizes and gene counts my provisional
position is that the gap between viruses and cellular organisms is
narrower than generally expected.
Based on the overlap in genome sizes and gene counts my provisional
position is that the gap between viruses and cellular organisms is
narrower than generally expected.
I haven't finished reading the paper on Mimivirus but you seem to know
quite a bit about it - I saw something about part of its genome being
pretty stable and the other highly variable and apparently borrowed from
the host. Is that accurate to your understanding or did I misunderstand?
And if it's accurate, could it suggest that Mimivirus' genome is being
used in a different way from the "standard" way we think of (if such a
thing exists), and this might imply a different relationship between
genome size and complexity from that of cells or other viruses?
Like the prokaryotes thing it's not a claim, just an idea. I'd been
wanting to dig into it a bit but haven't yet so I thought I'd ask you
for thoughts anyway.
Arkalen wrote:
I'm not talking about abiogenesis in that (snipped) sentence, I'm
talking about the conditions on early Earth, which is what you
continue to seem to claim you were referring to when you talked about
"faith".
No. You're talking about abiogenesis. You're saying that it likely
occurred under the conditions you referenced. You introduced an
abiogenesis "hypothesis" that was centered on a proposed environment,
these conditions. Abiogenesis.
Can you clarify for me which if any of these claims you'd be willing
to grant as
I grant that a better technique would be to study that which exist,
instead of that which does not exist.
I didn't say "useful", I said "superior to all others in scope
That's circular.
"Assuming I am right, this is the right answer! And the right
answer is superior to all the others!"
It's especially superior to panspermia which isn't even so much a
hypothesis as a vague notion that doesn't actually explain the
origin of life.
This is a very odd thing to say. Because we have no explanation
for the origins of life, least of all one that has been
confirmed scientifically.
This is about what strikes you as good or not.
the lab is a controlled environment that allows one to narrow down the
causes of any given phenomenon.
No. That's the opposite of science.
You merely decided that you know something happened.
All scientific experimentation can ever accomplish is to
establish that something MAY happen given specific,
measurable conditions. It doesn't mean that it ever
happened nor that those conditions ever existed.
Take for example the Todd Willingham case and the debunking of the
forensic science used to convict him. Forensic scientists had some
ideas on how human-caused fires differ from accidental ones and based
on those they argued that various patterns were evidence that Todd
Willingham had committed arson. Then a guy called Gerald Hurst
discredited all this evidence based in part on experiments where he
re-created those patterns in ways that showed that they can occur in
non-human-caused fires.
It was an excellent example of how people defer to "Authority"
and why an "Appeal to Authority" is not a valid argument.
As I recall from the case, the investigators found that the fire
burned in a star like pattern and this "Proved" in their minds
that it was an intentional Satanic act, while in reality the fire
seemed to burn towards oxygen sources.
What is lost on most people is that in both cases, the evidence
is exactly the same. Both were looking at patterns, the exact
same patterns. Both saw this "Star."
Now I can see there is a fun little conceptual paradox there that I'd
be happy to work through, but just for a start: do you think what
Gerald Hurst did was inherently impossible or invalid?
It's not really a paradox. The evidence was the evidence was the
evidence. Everyone saw it.
Sure, and the alkaline hydrothermal vent hypothesis is really good
in comparison to pretty much all of the other ideas on abiogenesis
Rather circular, that. And anyone proposing a different answer
would be definition be disagreeing with you.
It's not circular
Of course it's circular. You're concluding with your starting premise.
The claim is that the very same nature which produced diamonds
and forms lithium can also produce life. This life is not a
separate and distinct form of matter, it lies along a spectrum.
This much is a fact.
To claim anything else is to argue divine intervention!
So if we understand that spectrum we understand life, and an
understanding of that spectrum begins with actually mapping
it out.
I assume you're proposing something that you think is possible to do
Why wouldn't it be?
It's just studying what exists.
even somewhat practical given you think it's a better approach than
all other ones, so for example it wouldn't involve mapping every
individual particle of matter including those contained in the paper
or computers this map would be published in.
Every type of matter, yes.
Some categorization would be involved. What level of category do you
have in mind? Like, what might a typical entry in the database look
like? What size database do you think would be possible or reasonable?
Doesn't really matter. In my day you could locate an item inside of
a 20 million entree database in seconds, if that long.
...milliseconds.
Of course things are significantly faster now...
I'm also a bit curious what mechanism in your mind would cause such a
map to help use understand the origins of life.
I'm at a lot here. I can't explain how you can't see it.
Life isn't unique. It isn't separate and distinct. It is merely a
form of matter along a spectrum. Period. So let's map out and try
to understand that spectrum.
Because "Abiogenesis" isn't even science. It's "True" no matter
what, can't be falsified, just like God. And even if you somehow
produced it under laboratory conditions, you'd just be "Proving"
creationism. Because that's exactly what it would be: An
intelligence creating life.
So move on to the study of things that really do exist.
I'm sad you snipped the parenthetical right after that where I
confessed to cheekiness but added the actual serious answer, which was
that alkaline hydrothermal vents are definitely, indubitably an
environment that ever existed on this Earth which MIGHT've resulted in
abiogenesis.
Such pursuits are theoretically -- and only theoretically -- useful
in that they could identify environments to search for on other
worlds.
Exobiology.
Or...
Astrobiology.
On 13/04/2024 15:11, Arkalen wrote:
Based on the overlap in genome sizes and gene counts my provisional
position is that the gap between viruses and cellular organisms is
narrower than generally expected.
I haven't finished reading the paper on Mimivirus but you seem to know
quite a bit about it - I saw something about part of its genome being
pretty stable and the other highly variable and apparently borrowed
from the host. Is that accurate to your understanding or did I
misunderstand? And if it's accurate, could it suggest that Mimivirus'
genome is being used in a different way from the "standard" way we
think of (if such a thing exists), and this might imply a different
relationship between genome size and complexity from that of cells or
other viruses?
This is not just a feature of mimivirus and allies. I expect that gene content is fairly uniform with vertebrate families. But in plants there
is turnover in membership of gene families - cycles of duplication
followed by neofunctionalisation, subfunctionalisation or loss - so you
end up with a core genome and genes found within some but not all
species of a group. Places to look at this are Gossypium, where we have genomes for at least 25 species, including 6 species of subgenus Karpas
which have a common allotetraploid ancestry and which may show
differential loss during the ongoing process of diploidisation, and
other agriculturally important groups such as Brassica and Triticum.
Generally as you go towards "simpler" organisms the magnitude of the
contrast between the core genome and pangenome increases.
In E. coli strains have between 4,000 and 5,500 genes (4,288 in the
first sequenced strain), with a soft core (found in the great majority,
but not all strains) of around 3,000 genes, a core genome of 1,000
genes, an a pangenome of 16,000 or more genes.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9205054/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli
Wolbachia pipientis gene contents are strikingly variable between
strains symbiotic with different hosts.
Mycoplasmas have a gene content of the order of 1,000 genes, a core
genome of around 500 and a pangenome of well in excess of 30,000.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-021-02105-1
Giant viruses (and pox viruses), with core genomes and substantial
lineage specific genomes, don't seem out of line.
The question that needs to be asked is to what extent this a genuine phenomenon, and to what extent it is an artefact of greater taxonomic splitting in charismatic megabiota. Is it correct to treat Buchnera aphidicola, Wolbachia pipientis and Escherichia coli as single species,
or are they equivalent to a vertebrate genus, family, order or class?
Like the prokaryotes thing it's not a claim, just an idea. I'd been
wanting to dig into it a bit but haven't yet so I thought I'd ask you
for thoughts anyway.
Arkalen wrote:
No. You're talking about abiogenesis. You're saying that it likely
occurred under the conditions you referenced. You introduced an
abiogenesis "hypothesis" that was centered on a proposed environment,
these conditions. Abiogenesis.
I talk about many things,
Sadly, then, that right now you chose to talk about nothing.
If you are now walking back your abiogenesis position, good.
Glad to see you do that.
I grant that a better technique would be to study that which exist,
instead of that which does not exist.
So that's a "no" then. Oh well.
"No"... what? "No I won't run off on your tangent.
Seriously, I do NOT want this to degraded into yet another
narcissism-fueled meltdown, not after you were doing so
good!
My position is consistent. Go back to my initial post: Unchanged
view.
Sorry that consistency is so offensive.
"Assuming I am right, this is the right answer! And the right
answer is superior to all the others!"
Not "superior"; superior *in scope* (and
Typical narcissist.
This is a very odd thing to say. Because we have no explanation
for the origins of life, least of all one that has been
confirmed scientifically.
This is about what strikes you as good or not.
There is a big difference between an explanation we aren't sure is
true, something that's a partial explanation and something that's not
an explanation at all.
Not that it'll help but, my point was about HOW we go about
exploring the origins of life. You advocate studying that
which does not exist and I advocate studying that which does
exist.
The alkaline hydrothermal vent hypothesis
Oh who cares? Really. Even if one of these stabs in the dark
ever got it right -- scientists are able to spawn life from
non life under laboratory conditions -- it would simply be an
example of CREATIONISM.
is a partial explanation
It's not an explanation at all.
To pretend that it's half an explanation or 33% of an explanation
or even 5% of an explanation is a declaration of your beliefs,
not a statement of fact.
All scientific experimentation can ever accomplish is to
establish that something MAY happen given specific,
measurable conditions. It doesn't mean that it ever
happened nor that those conditions ever existed.
Are you confused about the subject of conversation again?
No, I actually began the discussion! And I've remained
consistent while you have repeatedly denied your very own
words!
We should change our focus, study those things that actually
exist, that we can study.
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 499 |
| Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
| Uptime: | 33:56:09 |
| Calls: | 9,832 |
| Calls today: | 2 |
| Files: | 13,761 |
| Messages: | 6,192,714 |