Irreducible complexity and Evolution

a reply to: dusty1

A brief overview of Directed Panspermia The late Nobel prize winner Professor Francis Crick, OM FRS, along with British chemist Leslie Orgel proposed the theory of directed panspermia in 1973. A co-discoverer of the double helical structure of the DNA molecule, Crick found it impossible that the complexity of DNA could have evolved naturally.

Where is it? What page??????????????????????????????

a reply to: dusty1

He believed in something called Directed Panspermia. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that Pasteur and Tyndall completed the demonstration that spontaneous generation is not occurring on the earth nowadays. Darwin and a number of other biologists concluded that life must have evolved here long ago when conditions were more favourable. A number of scientists, however, drew a quite different conclusion. They supposed that if life does not evolve from terrestrial nonliving matter nowadays, it may never have done so. Hence, they argued, life reached the earth as an “infection” from another planet (Oparin, 1957). Arrhenius profiles.nlm.nih.gov...

The conclusion from the original paper:

Directed Panspermia
I?. H. C. CRICK
Medical Research Council, Laboratwy of Molecular Biology, Hills Road, Cambridge, England
AND
L. E. ORGEL
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, P.O. Box 1809, San Diego, California 92112

CONCLUSION ln summary, there is adequate time for tcbchnological society to have evolved twice in succession. The places in the galaxy wltere life could start, if seeded, are lrrobably very numerous. We can foresee I It& we ourselves will be able to construct ro(nkets with sufficient range, delivery ftltility, and surviving payload if microctrzanisms are used. Thus the idea of Dirc*c:ted Panspermia cannot at the moment IN, rejected by any simple argument. It is ra(lically different from the idea that life ~larted here ab in& without infection I‘l.orn elsewhere. We have thus two sharply clil‘ferent theories of the origin of life on Lath. Can we choose between them? At the moment it seems that the experirtlcutal evidence is too feeble to make this ~liscrimination. It is difficult to avoid a lN>rsonal prejudice, one way or the other, Illrt such prejudices find no scientific Nl~l’port of any weight. It is thus important 11~;lt. both theories should be followed up. \‘ork on the supposed terrestrial origin of lifib is in progress in many laboratories. hs far as Directed Panspermia is concerned !v(’ can suggest several rather diverse lines III‘ research. The arguments we have employed here II~I~,. of necessity, somewhat sketchy. Thus 1111~ detailed design of a long-range spacewhip would be worth a careful feasibility HI 11tly. The spaceship must clearly be able I.II home on a star, for an object with any rrppreciable velocity, if dispatched in a random direction, would in almost all VIIXS pass right through the galaxy and otrf the other side. It must probably have 10 clecelerate as it approached the star, in I WC I er to allow the safe delivery of the payIlNk(l. The packets of microorganisms must IN, made and dispersed in such a way that ~-lrc*.v can survive the entry at high velocity illi o the atmosphere of the planet, and yet IN* ;Lble to dissolve in the oceans. Many 1114ul feasibility studies could be carried OIII on the engineering points involved. On the biological side we lack precise

information concerning the life-time of microorganisms held at very low temperatures while traveling through space at relatively high velocities. The rocket would presumably be coasting most of the time so the convenient temperature might approximate to that of space. How serious is radiation damage, given a certain degree of shielding’? How many distinct types of organism should be sent and which should they be! Should they collectively be capable of nitrogen fixation, oxidative phosphorylation and photosynthesis? Although many “soups” have been produced artifically in the laboratory, following the pioneer experiments of Miller, as far as we know no careful study has been made to determine which present-day organisms would grow well in them under primitive Earth conditions. At the same time present-day organisms should be carefully scrutinized to see if they still bear any vestigial traces of extraterrestrial origin. We have already mentioned the uniformity of the genetic code and the anomalous abundance of molybdenum. These facts amount to very little by themselves but as already stated there may be other as yet unsuspected features which, taken together, might point to a special type of planet as the home of our ancestors. These enquiries are not trivial, for if successful they could lead to others which would touch us more closely. Are the senders or their descendants still alive? Or have the hazards of 4 billion years been too much for them? Has their star inexorably warmed up and frizzled them, or were they able to color&e a different Solar System with a short-range spaceship? Have they perhaps destroyed themselves, either by too much aggression or too little? The difficulties of placing any form of life on another planetary system are so great that we are unlikely to be their sole descendants. Presumably they would have made many attempts to infect the galaxy. If the range of their rockets were small this might suggest that we have cousins on planets which are not too distant. Perhaps the galaxy is lifeless except for a local village, of which we are one member.

One further point deserves emphasis. We feel strongly that under no circumstances should we risk infecting other planets at the present time. It would be wise to wait until we know far more about the probability of the development of life on extrasolar planets before causing terrestrial organisms to escape from the solar system.

So where is it??????????????????????????????????

a reply to: dusty1

You're a liar and a fraud.

a reply to: Phantom423

I read the book. I read the papers. NOWHERE does he say anything of the sort that you posted.

I already shared the source for the statement.

The site is "not a crackpot creationist site".

The late Nobel prize winner Professor Francis Crick, OM FRS, along with British chemist Leslie Orgel proposed the theory of directed panspermia in 1973. A co-discoverer of the double helical structure of the DNA molecule, Crick found it impossible that the complexity of DNA could have evolved naturally.

www.panspermia-theory.com...


I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to quote.

Life Itself: It's Origin and Nature.
Page 51

"To Produce this MIRACLE of molecular construction all the cell need do is string together the amino acids (which make up the polypeptide chain) in the correct order"

The probabilities of creating a chain 200 amino acids long is "approximately equal to a one followed by 260 zeros!"
"This number is quite beyond our everyday comprehension" he goes on to say that this number is greater than all the atoms in the visible universe, ( 10 followed by 80 zeros)

Crick follows with an analogy of a billion monkeys on a billion typewriters ever typing correctly even one sonnet of Shakespeare's during the present lifetime of the universe.

He then says

"What we have discovered is that even at this very basic level there are complex structures which occur in many identical copies- that is which have organized complexity - and which CANNOT HAVE ARISEN BY PURE CHANCE. Life, from this point of view, is an infinitely rare event, and yet we see it teeming all around us."

Page 87
RNA replication

"What is so frustrating for our present purpose is that it seems almost impossible to give any numerical value to the probability of what seems a rather unlikely sequence of events"

Page 88

"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going."

He goes on

"If it was highly likely, there is no problem. But if it turns out that it was rather unlikely, then we are compelled to consider whether it might have arisen in other places in the universe where possibly, for one reason or another, conditions were more favorable"


Crick throughout his book is careful to not totally step on the toes of dogma, while making a case for the complexity of life, cough, cough, maybe, cough, possibly, cough, needing an alternate theory of DIRECTED PANSPERMIA.

Make no mistake that Directed Panspermia is Cricks pet theory, and what he was angling toward throughout the book.


Crick was also fascinated with consciousness.

Interesting guy.

originally posted by: Phantom423
a reply to: dusty1

You're a liar and a fraud.

You need professional help.

a reply to: dusty1

You're a liar and a fraud. You're making it up as you go along. You're intentionally misrepresenting the context of the paper to suit your own agenda.

You're a liar and a fraud.

a reply to: Phantom423

You're a liar and a fraud. You're making it up as you go along. You're intentionally misrepresenting the context of the paper to suit your own agenda.

I think you need to calm down.


The paper was Cricks agenda about Directed Panspermia.

Intelligent aliens seeding life on earth.

originally posted by: dusty1
a reply to: Phantom423

You're a liar and a fraud. You're making it up as you go along. You're intentionally misrepresenting the context of the paper to suit your own agenda.

I think you need to calm down.


The paper was Cricks agenda about Directed Panspermia.

Intelligent aliens seeding life on earth.

Sir Francis Crick the co discoverer of DNA came to realize that it is IMPOSSIBLE for DNA to have formed on its own. He came to believe that Panspermia was the explanation for life on earth.

Did you say that or did you not? Where in any of Crick's work did he ever say that it was IMPOSSIBLE for DNA to have formed on its own. He never said that. You made it up. You're a liar and a fraud.

You think no one is watching. Let me tell you, you never know who you're talking to.

a reply to: Phantom423

You think no one is watching. Let me tell you, you never know who you're talking to.

I think I do.

Do you have anything intelligent to actually talk about, or are you going to just continue with insults?

Did you say that or did you not? Where in any of Crick's work did he ever say that it was IMPOSSIBLE for DNA to have formed on its own. He never said that. You made it up. You're a liar and a fraud.

Did you not read any of my responses?

For the last time, the statement came from a pro Crick/ Directed Panspermia website. If you dispute the statement take it up with them.

Why did Francis Crick come up with the theory of Directed Panspermia if he was satisfied with the natural origins of life on earth?

a reply to: dusty1

I think I'll continue with the insults. An intelligent conversation with an honest participant is impossible with you.

a reply to: Phantom423

I think I'll continue with the insults. An intelligent conversation with an honest participant is impossible with you.

No.

I think you are the one who is impossible, just like abiogenesis.

a reply to: dusty1

The key portions of the following quoted citation in Cricks own words are "highly unorthodox proposal" and "bold speculation". It's not a scientific theory with supporting evidence like gravity, general relativity or evolution.

Crick and Orgel proposed their Directed Panspermia theory at a conference on Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence, organized by Carl Sagan and held at the Byuraka Observatory in Soviet Armenia in 1971. This theory which they described as an “highly unorthodox proposal” and “bold speculation” was presented as a plausible scientific hypothesis. Two years after the conference they published an article in Icarus on 1973. Crick and Orgel were careful to point out that Directed Panspermia was not a certainty; but rather a plausible alternative that ought to be taken seriously. In the paper Crick and Orgel recognised that they “do not have any strong arguments of this kind, but there are two weak facts that could be relevant”. The 1973 paper focuses on the universality of the genetic code and the role that molybdenum plays in living organisms which is more than one would expected given the abundance of molybdenum on the earth’s crust.

blogs.scientificamerican.com...

No strong arguments of this kind... Doesn't sound like a very concrete piece of work here now does it? Crick hypothesized this loose postulation with zero supporting evidence aside from personal conjecture prior to the discovery of self assembling molecules.

A pair of RNA-like molecules can spontaneously assemble into gene-length chains, chemists in the United States and Spain report. Billions of years ago, related molecules may have created a rudimentary form of genetic information that eventually led to the evolution of RNA and life itself, the researchers say. Although it's likely to be difficult, if not impossible, to prove whether similar proto-RNAs were present at the dawn of life, the researchers are working to see if the proto-RNAs can indeed faithfully encode information and evolve toward RNA.

But there are problems with this so-called RNA World hypothesis. For starters, in water, the four chemical components of RNA—the nucleotides abbreviated A, G, C, and U—don't spontaneously assemble to create sizable molecules. So it remains a mystery how the first long gene-length chains of RNA could have taken shape in Earth's ancient oceans.

Now, however, Hud and his colleagues at Georgia Tech and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Barcelona, Spain, have solved this solvent problem. The researchers gave TAP a short chemical tail, transforming it into a chemical they call TAPAS, as they reported on Friday in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. And that one change encourages it to assemble with CA to form rosettes in water. What is more, the rosettes stack atop one another, forming long genelike chains made up of as many as 18,000 individual TAPAS and CA components—quite a stack of small plates.

www.sciencemag.org...

pubs.acs.org...

So insisting that abiogenesis is an impossible process while supporting a hypothetical postulation simply because Crick put it forth is ludicrous at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.

a reply to: peter vlar

So insisting that abiogenesis is an impossible process while supporting a hypothetical postulation simply because Crick put it forth is ludicrous at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.

The researchers gave TAP a short chemical tail, transforming it into a chemical they call TAPAS, And that one change encourages it to assemble with CA to form rosettes in water.

This part struck me.

The team of Brian J. Cafferty†, Isaac Gállego†, Michael C. Chen†, Katherine I. Farley†, Ramon Eritja‡, and Nicholas V. Hud*† added a tail, to create TAPAS, and that demonstrates life didn't need intelligent intervention to come into being?*

Shouldn't we put an asterisk on this abiogenesis experiment?

*Some assembly required

a reply to: dusty1

So insisting that abiogenesis is an impossible process while supporting a hypothetical postulation simply because Crick put it forth .

When aspects of the origins of life are given the chance of 10^260 by the discoverer of DNA that is a big deal.

For me to believe that sounds impossible, somehow makes me a liar and a fraud on this board.

Which begs the question, why did Francis Crick feel the need to publish his thoughts on the subject?

Quite frankly experimentation supports the idea of Directed Panspermia. Guiding pieces to come together is called baking or construction in the real world. If DuPont guides materials together its patented and called intellectual property.

DNA is just a storage system, what about the actual code?

Now, researchers report that they’ve come up with a new way to encode digital data in DNA to create the highest-density large-scale data storage scheme ever invented. Capable of storing 215 petabytes (215 million gigabytes) in a single gram of DNA, the system could, in principle, store every bit of datum ever recorded by humans in a container about the size and weight of a couple of pickup trucks.

www.sciencemag.org... -data-one-room

Forgive me if I believe that it takes intelligence to encode data.

a reply to: Phantom423

I think I'll continue with the insults. An intelligent conversation with an honest participant is impossible with you.

If you interview for a job, and are told as you leave, that you have a 10^260 chance of getting the position, would you go home and celebrate?

Wouldn't that have just been a sarcastic way to tell you, that you ain't getting the job?

If your friend told you that its impossible for you to land the job, would you call them a liar and fraud?

originally posted by: Phantom423

"Crick found it impossible that the complexity of DNA could have evolved naturally. "

Where is it? What page??????????????????????????????

Belief in panspermia by definition would imply that they believed some sort of intelligence must have been responsible for organizing the initial conditions of life. Which would intuitively be on the right track considering the complexity of the genetic code within all lifeforms.

originally posted by: peter vlar

So insisting that abiogenesis is an impossible process while supporting a hypothetical postulation simply because Crick put it forth is ludicrous at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.

It's really not. If you guys would momentarily consider that you might be wrong you could see the other side of the argument. Code does not assemble without a coder. You say ludicrous things like "the genetic code is not code", etc, to avoid the obvious answer.

a reply to: cooperton

Belief in panspermia by definition would imply that they believed some sort of intelligence must have been responsible for organizing the initial conditions of life. Which would intuitively be on the right track considering the complexity of the genetic code within all lifeforms.

And what does that have to do with dusty1 fabricating a story about Dr. Crick? Nyet, nothing, nada.

originally posted by: dusty1
a reply to: Phantom423

I think I'll continue with the insults. An intelligent conversation with an honest participant is impossible with you.

If you interview for a job, and are told as you leave, that you have a 10^260 chance of getting the position, would you go home and celebrate?

Wouldn't that have just been a sarcastic way to tell you, that you ain't getting the job?

If your friend told you that its impossible for you to land the job, would you call them a liar and fraud?

A brief overview of Directed Panspermia The late Nobel prize winner Professor Francis Crick, OM FRS, along with British chemist Leslie Orgel proposed the theory of directed panspermia in 1973. A co-discoverer of the double helical structure of the DNA molecule, Crick found it impossible that the complexity of DNA could have evolved naturally.

What does that have to do with the fact that you fabricated a story about Dr. Crick? I posted the pages from the book. I posted the conclusion from the original research article. NOWHERE DOES IT SAY THAT DR. CRICK SAID IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE THAT DNA COULD HAVE EVOLVED NATURALLY.

You have yet to address the issue. You're typical of the Creationist liars and fraudsters. You attempt to divert the conversation to something irrelevant hoping that everyone will jump over your previous lie and fraud.

That's not going to happen here, I can assure you.

originally posted by: Phantom423

You have yet to address the issue. You're typical of the Creationist liars and fraudsters. You attempt to divert the conversation to something irrelevant hoping that everyone will jump over your previous lie and fraud.

That's not going to happen here, I can assure you.

Belief in panspermia inherently means you believe that some sort of intelligent agency was required to spark life on earth.

a reply to: cooperton

Again I'm asking what does that have to do with dusty1 fabricating a story about Dr. Crick? Crick NEVER SAID THAT IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE FOR DNA TO EVOLVE NATURALLY.

Answer the question and stop the diversionary tactics.

And you're another one who doesn't read the books or the papers. I posted pages from the book and the original paper. Dr. Crick doesn't "believe" in panspermia like a religion. It was strictly a hypothetical idea. READ THE BOOK. READ THE PAPER.

Jeez, I need a martini and it's only 9:30 am