Researchers propose new theory to explain seeds of life in asteroids
October 1st, 2013 in Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Excerpted from above: Both of the established theories – one involving the same radioactive process that heats the interior of Earth, and the other involving the interaction of plasma (super-heated gases that behave somewhat like fluids) and a magnetic field – are still taught to students of astrobiology.
My comment: In the context of astrobiological theory and “seeds of life”…
“Does this solve the chirality problem? No, it doesn’t, because the amino acids found in meteorites are mixtures of L- and D-forms. People who support the idea that all twenty amino acids were present from the beginning would have to account for the selection of only one form from the mixture. Since this is highly unlikely, most favor a solution where some form of chemical synthesis preferentially results in a huge excess of left-handed amino acids. So far no example of such a reaction has been found.”
Excerpted from above: Menzel said the researchers have now definitively refuted the established theory.
My comment: Chelo et al., refuted the entirety of mutation-driven evolution (another established theory for which no example has been found). “To our knowledge, this is the first time anyone was able to directly test Haldane’s theory. We have proved it correct for the initial stages, when a new allele appears in a population [i.e., mutations occur]. But our results show that further empirical work and more theoretical models are required to accurately predict the fate of that allele over long time spans [i.e., but mutations are not fixed in the genome].” Mutations occur but they are not fixed in the genome. Get it? They cannot be involved in natural selection. Can they?
Now we have another refuted theory with an attempt to replace it with another theoretical model that predicts how all of life arose on Earth. But what about the chirality problem? And what about the fact that achiral glycine was an RNA-mediated amino acid substituted in the GnRH molecule and conserved across 400 million years of vertebrate evolution?
Excerpted from above: “The mechanism requires some extreme assumptions about the young solar system,” Menzel said.
My comment: Why not simply make similar extreme assumptions about a young Earth? We can assume that achiral glycine was substituted in the GnRH molecule only 10,000 years ago and that the substitution enabled the ecological, social, neurogenic, and socio-cognitive niche construction that led to the accounting in Biblical Genesis of Creation sans mutations.
The advantage for evolutionary theorists and physicists who prefer assumptions, is that no experimental evidence ever suggested that mutations are fixed in the organized genome of any species. All evidence suggests that conserved molecular mechanisms, such as those involved in the fixation of glycine in the GnRH molecule for either 10,000 or 400 million years, link nutrient uptake to pheromone-controlled reproduction via the creation of de novo olfactory receptor genes. Thus, instead of extreme astrobiological assumptions and theories about mutation-driven evolution, there’s a model of adaptive evolution that includes biological facts.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking. What about the 500 species of stickleback fish that adaptively evolved during the past 15,000 years? Simple, since Earth is only 10,000 years old, the first stickleback fish must have arrived 5000 years earlier via their transport in the watery asteroid that collided with earth and created the watery oceans. Of course, I’m joking because the astrobiologists must be joking to think evolutionary theorists are going to accept another ridiculous theory of how life began on Earth. At least I hope they’re joking. How on earth could they not be?
