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evolution-digest Wednesday, May 5 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1431
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evolution-digest Tuesday, May 4 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1430
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 23:33:37 EDT
From: Biochmborg@aol.com
Subject: Re: Life in the Lab -- Fox and the Nobel Prize
In a message dated 5/3/99 7:08:01 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
alexanian@uncwil.edu writes:
> My point is that it hasn't been accomplished. The transition from dead
> matter to living matter is a tough one.
In what way are Fox's protocells not alive?
Kevin L. O'Brien
- ------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 23:34:19 EDT
From: Biochmborg@aol.com
Subject: Re: Life in the Lab -- Fox and the Nobel Prize
Look who woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!
In a message dated 5/3/99 5:43:48 PM Mountain Daylight Time, Art Chadwick
wrote:
> As a scientist who knew Sidney Fox quite well, I think I can say
> without ambiguity that any suggestion that Sidney Fox did anything
> worthy of a Nobel prize is ludicrous, and an offense to the whole
> spirit and meaning of the Nobel Prize.
>
I think you are letting your personal animosity towards Fox and myself cloud
your reasoning. Obviously, Henry Stanford, president of the University of
Miami (while Fox was there) disagrees with you, as would all the scientists
in the Thermal Protein Study Group at Southern Illinois University in
Carbondale. Did you even bother to look at the website I mentioned, or read
Fox's symposium? Apparently not.
>
> I have spoken to Fox personally on several occasions WRT
> his views on origins, and he knew well my own views on origins.
> His claim to have created anything like a life form (the best he
> did was to make tiny bubbles of proteinoid material that resembled
> cells as much as soap bubbles do) was laughable....
>
What's laughable is your description of Fox's protocells, especially in light
of the the symposium given by Fox that I posted. Anyone who read it, who is
not blinded by dogmatic belief, can see that proteinoid microspheres are more
than "tiny bubbles", and resemble cells better than they do soap bubbles. Do
soap bubbles have durable semi-permiable bilayer membranes? Can soap bubbles
reproduce? Can soap bubbles catalyze metabolic reactions? Can soap bubbles
convert light energy into chemical energy? Can soap bubbles generate
electrical fields? Can soap bubbles synthesize polypeptides or
polynucleotides? Can cells do these things? Proteinoid microsphere
protocells can; so which do you think they most closely resemble, cells or
soap bubbles?
Instead of shouting your ignorance from the rooftops, Art, read Fox's
symposium. Go to the website and see the research that people are doing that
proves these protocells are alive.
>
> ...and must have been considered by him as a tongue-in-cheek
> claim. His colleagues had no respect for his claims, and very
> little for his work.
>
That wasn't even true then and it is even less true now. Read the scientific
literature, Art; read Fox's symposium, Art; go to the website and see the
evidence for yourself. Stop relying on your own ignorance.
>
> When I last spoke with him, I challenged him again as to how
> he was going to come up with a bridge from DNA to protein
> without a ribosome. He explained to me that the problem was
> already solved. He told me a French biochemist had discovered
> a bacterium that did not need a ribosome to make proteins. This
> bug, he said, made proteins by directly associating the amino
> acids along the DNA backbone, then synthesizing the peptide
> bonds while they were thus ordered. I asked him why, if this
> was the case, that he was the only one who knew about this
> fabulous discovery.
>
Are you seriously suggesting that the only true science is that which is the
most popular, or the best well known? As you yourself should know, virtually
every scientific breakthrough started out as a minority concept disregarded
by the majority of researchers in that field. That says nothing about the
truth of the concept itself. Why didn't you ask Fox for a reference so that
you could see for yourself whether the concept was true? Or are you so
dogmatically certain that Fox is "ludicrous" that you don't need to see the
evidence?
>
> He gave me a lecture on the philosophy of science, and about
> how ideas that were not popular had a hard time being accepted
> in the scientific community. He stated that the Frenchman had
> been greeted by ridicule from his colleagues. I assured him that
> he needn't give his lecture to me....
>
Obviously not true, since you missed his point; otherwise you would have
asked to see the evidence so you could make up your own mind.
>
> ...that I was already well acquainted with the problems scientists
> had accepting or even giving consideration to new ideas.
>
Then why didn't you give Fox the benefit of the doubt and give the evidence a
fair consideration?
>
> Needless to say, the Frenchman's idea has still not caught on.
>
How would you know? Because his work hasn't been written about in the New
York Times, or Newsweek, or Parade? Because it isn't common knowledge? You
won't even read the Frenchman's original paper, or Fox's own research, or the
latest work being done by his colleagues; why should I believe that you know
better than Fox and other biologists what constitutes proper contemporary
abiotic science?
>
> But this absurdity demonstrates the length we are all
> capable of traveling in propping up an idea that is our own,
> whether it has merit or not.
>
So instead of investigating the evidence for yourself, you declare it absurd
from the depth of your ignorance, then have the gall to project your own
folly onto Fox? Sounds to me like you are the one traveling to great lengths
to prop up your own flawed opinions.
>
> Sidney Fox's work is now considered by most origin of life
> advocates I have read to have been a tiny detour down a
> road that led nowhere.
>
Then you have read only a tiny portion of the available literature, and most
of it was probably at least ten years out of date. What you wrote above
would be news to the dozens of researchers who have done, and still are
doing, protocell research. Even Fox's own critics have within the past
decade started admitting that he was right after all. But then you would
know that if you read the scientific literature on the subject.
>
> If you know of any publication by Fox or his students that has
> made the claim to have produced a functioning reproducing cell,
> and has substantiated that claim, please give us the reference.
>
I will when I post my essay; I already have by posting Fox's symposium and
the URL for the Thermal Protein Study Group website. If you go there you
will find two links; one to a list of sixteen references, all but one less
than ten years old, most of them less than five years old, all of which not
only assert that Fox's protocells are "functioning reproducing cells" but
which also "substantiate that claim"; the other to the reference and abstract
listing for a 1994 American Chemical Society conference on the origin of life
and the use of priteinoids as novel industrial materials (so much for "a tiny
detour down a road that led nowhere").
>
> Posting his obituary does not cut it.
>
Did I say anywhere in that post that I was offering that obituary as
evidence? No, I was offerring it in reply to Moorad Alexanian's claim that
life had not been synthesized in the lab because no one had been awarded the
Nobel Prize for the accomplishment. Try using the brains God gave a jelly
donut and think -- really think -- for a change, instead of simply knee-jerk
react.
Kevin L. O'Brien
- ------------------------------
End of evolution-digest V1 #1430
********************************
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 04 May 1999 09:10:34 -0400
From: Moorad Alexanian <alexanian@uncwil.edu>
Subject: Re: Life in the Lab -- Fox and the Nobel Prize
I am no expert in cellular biology. Let us assume that Fox made a
fundamental breakthrough in the question of creating life in the lab. A
seminal work like that would give rise to a whole slew of works following
Fox's lead that would give rise to further breakthroughs. The scientific
establishment is dying to accomplish such feats and publicize it. I believe
that creating life in the lab would surpass in importance the two scientific
revolutions of this century--relativity and quantum mechanics. In addition,
if Fox could not get the Nobel Prize posthumously, then surely someone else
would be deserving of such a prize? Who is that person?
Moorad
- -----Original Message-----
From: Biochmborg@aol.com <Biochmborg@aol.com>
To: chadwicka@swau.edu <chadwicka@swau.edu>; evolution@calvin.edu
<evolution@calvin.edu>
Cc: asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
Date: Tuesday, May 04, 1999 12:09 AM
Subject: Re: Life in the Lab -- Fox and the Nobel Prize
>Look who woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!
>
>In a message dated 5/3/99 5:43:48 PM Mountain Daylight Time, Art Chadwick
>wrote:
>
>> As a scientist who knew Sidney Fox quite well, I think I can say
>> without ambiguity that any suggestion that Sidney Fox did anything
>> worthy of a Nobel prize is ludicrous, and an offense to the whole
>> spirit and meaning of the Nobel Prize.
>>
>
>I think you are letting your personal animosity towards Fox and myself
cloud
>your reasoning. Obviously, Henry Stanford, president of the University of
>Miami (while Fox was there) disagrees with you, as would all the scientists
>in the Thermal Protein Study Group at Southern Illinois University in
>Carbondale. Did you even bother to look at the website I mentioned, or
read
>Fox's symposium? Apparently not.
>
>>
>> I have spoken to Fox personally on several occasions WRT
>> his views on origins, and he knew well my own views on origins.
>> His claim to have created anything like a life form (the best he
>> did was to make tiny bubbles of proteinoid material that resembled
>> cells as much as soap bubbles do) was laughable....
>>
>
>What's laughable is your description of Fox's protocells, especially in
light
>of the the symposium given by Fox that I posted. Anyone who read it, who
is
>not blinded by dogmatic belief, can see that proteinoid microspheres are
more
>than "tiny bubbles", and resemble cells better than they do soap bubbles.
Do
>soap bubbles have durable semi-permiable bilayer membranes? Can soap
bubbles
>reproduce? Can soap bubbles catalyze metabolic reactions? Can soap
bubbles
>convert light energy into chemical energy? Can soap bubbles generate
>electrical fields? Can soap bubbles synthesize polypeptides or
>polynucleotides? Can cells do these things? Proteinoid microsphere
>protocells can; so which do you think they most closely resemble, cells or
>soap bubbles?
>
>Instead of shouting your ignorance from the rooftops, Art, read Fox's
>symposium. Go to the website and see the research that people are doing
that
>proves these protocells are alive.
>
>>
>> ...and must have been considered by him as a tongue-in-cheek
>> claim. His colleagues had no respect for his claims, and very
>> little for his work.
>>
>
>That wasn't even true then and it is even less true now. Read the
scientific
>literature, Art; read Fox's symposium, Art; go to the website and see the
>evidence for yourself. Stop relying on your own ignorance.
>
>>
>> When I last spoke with him, I challenged him again as to how
>> he was going to come up with a bridge from DNA to protein
>> without a ribosome. He explained to me that the problem was
>> already solved. He told me a French biochemist had discovered
>> a bacterium that did not need a ribosome to make proteins. This
>> bug, he said, made proteins by directly associating the amino
>> acids along the DNA backbone, then synthesizing the peptide
>> bonds while they were thus ordered. I asked him why, if this
>> was the case, that he was the only one who knew about this
>> fabulous discovery.
>>
>
>Are you seriously suggesting that the only true science is that which is
the
>most popular, or the best well known? As you yourself should know,
virtually
>every scientific breakthrough started out as a minority concept disregarded
>by the majority of researchers in that field. That says nothing about the
>truth of the concept itself. Why didn't you ask Fox for a reference so
that
>you could see for yourself whether the concept was true? Or are you so
>dogmatically certain that Fox is "ludicrous" that you don't need to see the
>evidence?
>
>>
>> He gave me a lecture on the philosophy of science, and about
>> how ideas that were not popular had a hard time being accepted
>> in the scientific community. He stated that the Frenchman had
>> been greeted by ridicule from his colleagues. I assured him that
>> he needn't give his lecture to me....
>>
>
>Obviously not true, since you missed his point; otherwise you would have
>asked to see the evidence so you could make up your own mind.
>
>>
>> ...that I was already well acquainted with the problems scientists
>> had accepting or even giving consideration to new ideas.
>>
>
>Then why didn't you give Fox the benefit of the doubt and give the evidence
a
>fair consideration?
>
>>
>> Needless to say, the Frenchman's idea has still not caught on.
>>
>
>How would you know? Because his work hasn't been written about in the New
>York Times, or Newsweek, or Parade? Because it isn't common knowledge?
You
>won't even read the Frenchman's original paper, or Fox's own research, or
the
>latest work being done by his colleagues; why should I believe that you
know
>better than Fox and other biologists what constitutes proper contemporary
>abiotic science?
>
>>
>> But this absurdity demonstrates the length we are all
>> capable of traveling in propping up an idea that is our own,
>> whether it has merit or not.
>>
>
>So instead of investigating the evidence for yourself, you declare it
absurd
>from the depth of your ignorance, then have the gall to project your own
>folly onto Fox? Sounds to me like you are the one traveling to great
lengths
>to prop up your own flawed opinions.
>
>>
>> Sidney Fox's work is now considered by most origin of life
>> advocates I have read to have been a tiny detour down a
>> road that led nowhere.
>>
>
>Then you have read only a tiny portion of the available literature, and
most
>of it was probably at least ten years out of date. What you wrote above
>would be news to the dozens of researchers who have done, and still are
>doing, protocell research. Even Fox's own critics have within the past
>decade started admitting that he was right after all. But then you would
>know that if you read the scientific literature on the subject.
>
>>
>> If you know of any publication by Fox or his students that has
>> made the claim to have produced a functioning reproducing cell,
>> and has substantiated that claim, please give us the reference.
>>
>
>I will when I post my essay; I already have by posting Fox's symposium and
>the URL for the Thermal Protein Study Group website. If you go there you
>will find two links; one to a list of sixteen references, all but one less
>than ten years old, most of them less than five years old, all of which not
>only assert that Fox's protocells are "functioning reproducing cells" but
>which also "substantiate that claim"; the other to the reference and
abstract
>listing for a 1994 American Chemical Society conference on the origin of
life
>and the use of priteinoids as novel industrial materials (so much for "a
tiny
>detour down a road that led nowhere").
>
>>
>> Posting his obituary does not cut it.
>>
>
>Did I say anywhere in that post that I was offering that obituary as
>evidence? No, I was offerring it in reply to Moorad Alexanian's claim that
>life had not been synthesized in the lab because no one had been awarded
the
>Nobel Prize for the accomplishment. Try using the brains God gave a jelly
>donut and think -- really think -- for a change, instead of simply
knee-jerk
>react.
>
>Kevin L. O'Brien
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 04 May 1999 09:12:16 -0400
From: Moorad Alexanian <alexanian@uncwil.edu>
Subject: Re: Life in the Lab -- Fox and the Nobel Prize
Do Fox's protocells age? Do they die?
Moorad
- -----Original Message-----
From: Biochmborg@aol.com <Biochmborg@aol.com>
To: alexanian@uncwil.edu <alexanian@uncwil.edu>; evolution@calvin.edu
<evolution@calvin.edu>; asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
Date: Tuesday, May 04, 1999 12:04 AM
Subject: Re: Life in the Lab -- Fox and the Nobel Prize
>In a message dated 5/3/99 7:08:01 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
>alexanian@uncwil.edu writes:
>
>> My point is that it hasn't been accomplished. The transition from dead
>> matter to living matter is a tough one.
>
>In what way are Fox's protocells not alive?
>
>Kevin L. O'Brien
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 22:45:42 EDT
From: Biochmborg@aol.com
Subject: Re: Life in the Lab -- Fox and the Nobel Prize
In a message dated 5/4/99 7:08:42 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
alexanian@uncwil.edu writes:
> I am no expert in cellular biology.
>
Then why do you believe you know better than biologists whether life has been
synthesized in the lab?
>
> Let us assume that Fox made a
> fundamental breakthrough in the question of creating life in the lab. A
> seminal work like that would give rise to a whole slew of works following
> Fox's lead that would give rise to further breakthroughs.
>
That is exactly what is being done. Go to www.siu.edu/~protocell/ and you
will find links to articles by scientists investigating protocells and
doscovering new breakthroughs. One is that protocells are also protoneurons.
>
> The scientific
> establishment is dying to accomplish such feats and publicize it. I
believe
> that creating life in the lab would surpass in importance the two
scientific
> revolutions of this century--relativity and quantum mechanics.
>
Only if you believe that life is someone unusual or special. In fact, what
Fox's work tells us is that life is simply a matter of chemistry and
organization. That means that creating life in the lab is no more spectular
than synthesizing a protein.
>
> In addition,
> if Fox could not get the Nobel Prize posthumously, then surely someone else
> would be deserving of such a prize? Who is that person?
>
no one who is still alive. Besides, Fox has so dominated the field that so
far there is no other person who has done as much work or has made as many
breakthoughs. And now that more people are getting involved, it may no
longer be possible for anyone to dominate the field again.
Kevin L. O'Brien
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 22:45:26 EDT
From: Biochmborg@aol.com
Subject: Re: Life in the Lab -- Fox and the Nobel Prize
I see that Art is acting true to form. He freely criticizes my claims
without presenting any evidence to demonstrate that they truly are wrong, but
whenever I provide him with evidence to show that my claims are correct, he
bails out of the discussion rather than deal with it or even acknowledge it.
For that reason, I tend to believe he will ignore my essay as well, unless he
can find some trivial points he can blow out off proportion.
Kevin L. O'Brien
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 22:45:16 EDT
From: Biochmborg@aol.com
Subject: Re: Life in the Lab -- Fox and the Nobel Prize
In a message dated 5/4/99 7:11:39 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
alexanian@uncwil.edu writes:
> Do Fox's protocells age? Do they die?
Are you suggesting that if they did not, they would not be alive? You are
confusing macrobiology with microbilogy. Unicellular organisms do not age in
the sense that animals and plants do. They grow, mature, reproduce, but they
do not grow old. Even if they are prevented from reproducing they die only
if directly killed (poisoned, starved, dehydrated, cooked, irradiated, etc.)
or if one of their genetic self-destruct mechanisms are activated. The same
is true for an animal or plant tissue cell, the only difference being that
their self-destruct mechanisms tend to self-activate on a regular schedule.
If, however, you can eliminate the self-activation mechanism(s), then the
tissue cell would be virtually immortal, like a cancer cell.
Like cells and unicellular organisms, Fox's protocells can be directly killed
and they are capable of self-destruction, but like cells and unicellular
organisms they do not age, nor do they die if they get too old.
Kevin L. O'Brien
------------------------------
End of evolution-digest V1 #1431
********************************