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