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Basic
Worldview:
102
Atheism vs. Theism
Scientists Acting as Mechanisms, Article 3
Prelude:
"Atheism/Theism" vs. "Science, the Bible, & Creation"
Atheism:
Introduction and Charges
Charge
1, Deduction and Induction
Charge
2, Question 1
Charge
2, Questions 2 and 3
Charge
2, Summary and Question 4
Charges
3 and 4, Definitions
Empirical
Evidence
Scientists
Acting as Mechanisms, Article 1
Scientists
Acting as Mechanisms, Article 2
Scientists
Acting as Mechanisms, Article 3
Occam's
Razor and Conclusions
Footnote
1
Footnote
2 and 3
Proof
of Life
Not
Theories, Unsubstantiated Hypotheses 1
Not
Theories, Unsubstantiated Hypotheses 2
Not
Theories, Unsubstantiated Hypotheses 3
Not
Theories, Unsubstantiated Hypotheses 4
Scientists:
Life on Earth Imported from Outer Space
Atheisms
Circle of Reasons
Is
God a White Crow?
Discover Article
1) It doesn't hurt to have such a cosmic view of things in
Deamer's chosen field of study: the origin of life. Deamer
is unusual even among the few dozen researchers in his
field, and not just in his discography. For most of the
others, explaining the origin of life means explaining the
origin of the genetic code: How did DNA arise from chemical
reactions on the early Earth? How did the original building
blocks of today's genetic code assemble themselves into crudely
self-reproducing units? Were the first life-forms based
not on double-stranded DNA but on single-stranded RNA?
- Discover article
This first quote from the article tells us a few interesting
items. First, this quote once again illustrates the chicken
and egg dilemma of which came first, DNA, RNA, or proteins.
Second, this quote hints that one approach to solving this
dilemma has been to suppose RNA may solve the problem, just
as our previous article detailed. And third, apparently there
are not more than perhaps several dozen researchers in the
field of scientific inquiry for the origin of life. The fact
that this article starts out by hinting at RNA as a possible
solution to the chicken and egg dilemma itself illustrates
the smallness of this research circle.
2) To most who search for life's origins, genes are everything.
But as David Deamer keeps reminding them, without a container
for those genes, there can be no life. "Part of the definition
of life," says David Deamer, "is that it is in a place."
- Discover article
3) For the past 18 years, though, Deamer has been gently reminding
his colleagues that these questions define only part of the
puzzle of life. DNA does not float loosely through
the oceans. Life is constrained in a place--or, to
be more specific, within a boundary. Life is chemical
interaction, and for that interaction to occur, life's molecules
must be close to one another. Without a physical boundary
of some sort, without a skin, a bark, or a cell membrane,
an organism is nothing more than a diffusing blur of molecules.
To explain how the first creature came to be, you have
to explain how its innards got to be distinguished from its
surroundings. In other words, you've got to explain
how the first single- celled creature got encapsulated in
a cell. - Discover article
So far we've looked at attempts to solve the chicken and egg
dilemma, which focused on the development of proteins, DNA,
and RNA. David Deamer takes a different approach. Deamer believes
that life requires not only these molecules, but also a membrane
of some kind to define and maintain the first cell.
4) When he returned to Davis, Deamer pursued the "membrane
first" hypothesis, experimenting with mixtures of three
compounds researchers believed existed on the early Earth:
fatty acids, glycerol, and phosphates. - Discover article
(Notice the use of the technical term "hypothesis," instead
of "membrane first theory." This denotes the scientifically
speaking there is a difference between a theory and a hypothesis,
which will become relevant in our article, "Not
Theories, Unsubstantiated Hypotheses.")
Deamer and his team soon succeeded in using liposomes to create
what could potentially act as a primitive membrane. Their
operating hypothesis was that in order for a living cell to
exist and survive, it would first need a membrane. So, the
chicken and egg debate in the modern scientific community
not only involves proteins, DNA, and RNA, but also whether
or not a membrane had to come first as well.
5) "Still, given that there must have been a first cell,
it had to have a source of lipid molecules. It had to."
- Discover article
Believing that some sort of primitive membrane must first
exist for a living cell to develop and survive, Deamer and
his team find success in using lipid structures known as liposomes.
6) In the right concentrations, he found, they formed into
lipids, and in turn, the lipids spontaneously assembled
into liposomes. Now Bangham's ponderings had turned into some
real chemistry, and Deamer's journey to life's genesis had
begun. - Discover article
Now that they had a potential primitive membrane, the next
step was to see if they could get other molecules necessary
for life, such as DNA, into the primitive liposome membrane.
7) He opens a jar of lipids, extracted from egg yolk,
and mixes some of the clear oil into a small test tube of
waterÉDeamer extracts a few drops from the mixture and puts
them on a glass slide. With the casual precision of a veteran
chef, he then adds dried white threads of DNA from salmon
sperm to a second test tube, where they turn gooey. He
spikes the solution with a fluorescent stain and adds some
of these DNA drops to the lipids on the slide. - Discover
article
8) After a few minutes of primordial heat, the lipids and
DNA on the slide have dried into a thin film. Deamer fills
his tide pool again by adding a few drops of waterÉ lipids
squirting out from the dried film into the surrounding waterÉSome
of them are dim, but others glow with the intense fluorescent
green dye attached to the DNA. The glow is clear proof that
as the planes of lipids curled up into vesicles, the DNA
that had been sandwiched in between them got trapped inside.
- Discover article
Success. Deamer is able to create an environment, which through
the unintelligent mechanisms of heat and water currents is
able to put DNA molecules inside lipids acting as primitive
membranes. In fact, through further modifications of the liposome
membrane, Deamer and his team were able to get other molecules
inside them as well.
9) In 1990, Deamer started trying to toss ions through these
pores. Potassium ions, he found, would go through nicely.
In 1992, Chakrabarti managed to slip amino acids, which are
three times bigger than potassium, through the leaky membrane.
- Discover article
10) The researchers began by forming liposomes out of 14-carbon
lipids and used Deamer's tide pool method to capture an
enzyme known as an RNA polymerase. - Discover article
11) The liposomes had indeed allowed nucleotides to enter
through their pores, and the polymerase had assembled them
into RNA. The researchers thus showed that primordial
liposomes forming in tide pools could have performed some
essential cellular tricks. - Discover article
Sounds like success. An unintelligent natural environment
bringing DNA, RNA, amino acids and other fundamental cellular
molecules into a primitive membrane. However, remember our
previous article from American Scientist, Quotes No. 3
and No. 7.
3) Scientists considering the origins of biological molecules
confronted a profound difficulty. In the modern cell, each
of these molecules is dependent on the other two for either
its manufacture or its functionÉOne possible scenario for
life's origins would have to include the possibility that
two kinds of molecules evolved together, one informational
and one catalytic. But this scenario is extremely complicated
and highly unlikely. - American Scientist article
7) "In the first stage, a pathway had to develop that
took raw organic material and turned it into RNA. The
first building blocks of life had to be converted into the
constituents of nucleotides, from which the nucleotides themselves
had to be formed. From there, the nucleotides had to be strung
together to produce the first RNA molecules. Efforts to reproduce
these events in the laboratory have been only partly successful
so far, which is understandable in view of the complexity
of the chemistry involved. - American Scientist
article
Proteins and DNA are not likely to have evolved at the same
time. That's why scientists have begun to assume that perhaps
a primitive form of RNA came first as a precursor to the modern
forms of all 3: protein, DNA, and RNA. However, reproducing
RNA in an experimental natural environment has only had "partial
success." That means, not only has there been no natural mechanism
found capable of producing RNA, but also, there is therefore
no natural mechanism capable of explaining the evolution of
DNA and protein synthesis either. And finally, in order for
RNA to lead to DNA and protein synthesis, it would also be
necessary for RNA replication to occur through unintelligent
natural mechanisms. Remember Quote No. 10 from the
American Scientists article.
10) The development of RNA replication must have been the
second stage in the evolution of the RNA world. The problem
is not as simple as might appear at first glance. Attempts
at engineering--with considerably more foresight and technical
support than the prebiotic world could have enjoyed--an RNA
molecule capable of catalyzing RNA replication have failed
so far. - American Scientist article
But bringing about RNA replication through unintelligent natural
mechanisms has also failed. In fact, scientists haven't even
been able to bring this about with the foresight and technical
support that nature doesn't possess. Thus, as of yet, there
is no unintelligent natural mechanism for solving the chicken
and egg dilemma and explaining the origin of protein synthesis,
RNA, and DNA.
As we have said, since a natural mechanism responsible for
producing these elements (proteins, DNA, and RNA) has not
been found, every time that a scientist creates an experiment
utilizing one of these elements, they are themselves acting
as the mechanism of cell development. When intelligent human
beings insert into the experiment some element that there
is no known natural mechanism to produce, intelligent intervention
itself becomes the mechanism of the experiment. As such, when
Deamer and his team insert DNA and RNA into these primitive
membrane-like liposomes, they too, are employing intelligent
intervention as a necessary mechanism of cell development.
But that's not all. This series of experiments also asserts
one other element in the chicken and egg dilemma.
"Even if they succeed, many questions will remain before
anyone will be able to build a functioning cell. How does
it manage growth and division--a process that demands mind-boggling
choreography even in a microbe? How exactly is this dance
powered with energy? - Discover article
This quote also demonstrates that no natural mechanism has
been found for powering the energy needs of the first cell.
Once again, without identifying unintelligent natural mechanisms
capable of recreating the first RNA, DNA, protein synthesis,
or other functions of a cell, how can scientists be so sure
that unintelligent causes are capable of producing the first
living cell? Especially when you consider that nature operates
without foresight and that even with direct engineering, foresight,
and technical support scientists have not been able to reproduce
these things in a recreated natural environment.
We refer once again to the American Scientist article.
10) "Attempts at engineering--with considerably more foresight
and technical support than the prebiotic world could have
enjoyed--an RNA molecule capable of catalyzing RNA replication
have failed so far. With the advent of RNA replication, Darwinian
evolution was possible for the first time." - American
Scientist article
Apparently, apart from intelligent intervention, Darwinian
evolution is still not possible. And by employing human intervention
in place of yet undiscovered hypothetical natural mechanisms,
even experiments as successful as these, only serve to prove
that very fact.
(See Footnote 2 - on comparing
diamond formation and the origin of life.)
At this point we have refuted Atheistic/Agnostic Charge
No. 3.
Atheistic/Agnostic Charge No. 3: There is no empirical
evidence to support or necessitate a theistic assumption (that
god exists, i.e. that an intelligent agent was necessary to
bring about the origin of the universe and life.) All the
empirical evidence only necessitates unintelligent causes.
We have just shown how the only empirical evidence, in fact,
necessitates the induction that as a general rule, life is
produced by intelligent agency.
(See Footnote 3 - on the causation
of life and God's life.)
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