Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cbscc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!cbosgd!cbscc!pmd From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: Re: The Probability of Life from Non-life Message-ID: <1597@cbscc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 31-Jan-84 12:28:26 EST Article-I.D.: cbscc.1597 Posted: Tue Jan 31 12:28:26 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 7-Feb-84 07:07:47 EST References: <1582@cbscc.UUCP>, <120@digi-g.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus Lines: 53 Just to point out some of the logical errors in the argument against life developing from inorganic chemicals...You claim that: 1) since L & D amino acids, when synthesized, form a 50/50 mix, and 2) since the simplest form of life needs approx. 410 acids, and 3) since almost all life uses L acids, that 4) the probability of this arising by chance is 2^410?!? This is just plain stupid. When amino acids were first discovered, only the natural ones were known. When later they (and new ones) were synthesized in the lab, the left & right handedness cropped up, so the L and D modifiers were added. All the known natural acids were arbitrarily dubbed L to make it easier on future biology students. The point is that when supposed early earth conditions are simulated (as in Stanley Miller's experiments) a racemic mixture of amino acids is always produced. Yet these are the conditions under which life is supposed to have first come into existence. Of course only natural amino acids existed when they were first discovered. They are the only ones that exist in nature (living things). Yet when the "natural" evolution of these living things from non-living chemicals is simulated, both types of amino acids are produced. Not only that, they have to be removed immediately from the reaction medium if they are not to be destroyed. Also the distinction between D and L amino acids is not just that the L is natural and D synthesized. As the article points out, they are stereoisomers. That is, the molecular structures are mirror images of each other--like our right hand is to our left. (Hence the term *handedness*). Also, you stated that: 1) free water hasn't been detected anywhere else in the universe, therefore 2) Earth is the only place in the universe with free water. Go to Alpha Centari and see if you can detect free water in THIS system. Unexcited free water is hard to detect over a distance of many parsecs, and excited water doesn't stay water very long if anything else is around. The article did not state that the earth was the only place in the universe with liquid water (I don't know what you mean by *free water*. The article referred to liquid water.) The point was made that liquid water prevents the formation of peptide bonds between amino acids. Earth is the only place known to have free water, yet life is supposed to have had its beginning here. The point is that an environment without liquid water would have been more suitable for abiogenesis (though there are many other problems to overcome). You seem to have gotten the argument backwards here. Perhaps this explains why a few evolutionist scientists (like Sir Fred Hoyle and Francis Crick (sp?) entertain (and even espouse, in Hoyle's case) theories that the first microrganisms came from outer space and then evolved into us. This doesn't explain how those life forms came into existence, however. Paul Dubuc