preece@uicsl.UUCP (02/04/84)
#R:cbscc:-158200:uicsl:7500043:000:433 uicsl!preece Feb 3 10:59:00 1984 I find it much easier to believe that under conditions we can only speculate about life did occur, regardless of the probabilities, than to believe that there is a conscious creator of the universe. I simply believe that when we know enough we will know how life came to be. We haven't known very much for very long; it's silly to predicate probabilities on our current state of knowledge. scott preece ihnp41uiucdcs!uicsl!preece
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (02/09/84)
The essay that provoked this discussion made some very grand
statements about probability, and then made some rather unlikely
concessions to bring the probability of life emerging up to
some level that was still incredibly low.
What it didn't do was to consider things such as:
The probability of multiple improbable events is not obtained by
multiplying the probabilities of the individual events if the
occurrence of one changes the probability of the others
(conditional probability is not the same as absolute probability)
The time scale for the emergence of oxygen in the atmosphere is
pretty well agreed (See, for example, the Sept 83 Scientific
American: essentially zero before 2 GyBP (gigayears before present)
1% at 2GyBP, 4% at 1 GyBP, 25% at 0.5 GyBP, reaching 100% of
its present value only about 300 million years ago).
A reducing atmosphere is NOT an ad-hoc assumption made by
"evolutionists" to support an otherwise untenable argument.
If D and L forms (defined by their optical rotation properties,
not, as someone suggested, because they occur in life) were
equally likely to combine to form life, but not to nourish one
another, then the one that started first would probably overwhelm
the other unless the world was enormous). [This is like the
problem of where is the antimatter in the universe. It COULD exist
in separate galactic clusters from the matter, but more probably
the excess matter destroyed most of the antimatter before it
could separate and form galactic clusters.]
Catalytic reactions can occur many millions of times faster than
uncatalyzed reactions.
Surfaces can sometimes bind suitable elements or molecules. Those
that can bind to the ones already there have a preference in
making large clusters. Some people have suggested that life
began on damp clay, not in free water. This is not improbable,
if we see the analogy between the template-assembly process
on clay and the vastly more complex template-assembly process
now used by DNA/RNA.
Laboratory experiments that show the conditions that give rise to
amino acids also tend to destroy them are experiments that have
lasted for hours, not billions of years. It takes only a finite
reaction rate (however small) to ensure that there will be SOME
of the product hanging around at all times. There will be some
finite reaction rate among those products, occasionally leading
to more stability of the product. Perhaps one such more stable
molecule was produced in one of the laboratory experiments? Who
would notice?
All in all, I'm very glad it was an undergraduate essay!
--
Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmtAnonymous@inmet.UUCP (02/24/84)
#R:cbscc:-158200:inmet:6400093:000:1 inmet!Anonymous Feb 23 11:16:00 1984