>DNAunion: In addition, unlike Creationism, ID is not anti-evolution.
"Pure" ID accepts evolution, just not its claimed unlimited creative powers
(for example, the ability to create life from non-life).
>Huxter: Many persons of the pro-ID persuasion on list, DNAunion for
example, conflate evolution with abiogenesis.
>DNAunion: Many persons on this list, unlike Huxter, can read and understand
what they read. I did not say that evolution and abiogenesis are the same: I
did not conflate the two (contrary to Huxter's claim).
My statement meant that (according to the purely-natural, terrestrial origin
of life positions) evolution was the mechanism behind abiogenesis: evolution
is claimed to have had the power to turn lifeless molecules into life.
Unless Huxter prefers *spontaneous and instantaneous* "ex nihilo" creation of
life from simple organic chemicals, then I suggest that he too believes that
evolution was involved in the origin of life.
(Those from ARN: please forgive my posting of the following material again -
you can skip it as there is nothing I have not already posted there. This is
for Huxter's benefit.)
From my personal notes:
The topic of chemical evolution, as applied to the origins of life, involves
discussions of how mere chemicals evolve into "higher" forms without the need
for organisms.
"The next stage in chemical evolution involved the condensation of amino
acids, purines, pyrimidines, and sugars to yield large molecules that
resulted in proteins and nucleic acids." (Cleveland P. Hickman Jr., Larry S.
Roberts, Allan Larson, Integrated Principles of Zoology, 10th Edition, McGraw
-Hill, 1997, p35)
More to the point is the following. It directly and explicitly ties
evolution in with the origin of life.
"The RNA World is a hypothesis about the origin of life based on the view
that the most critical event is the emergence of a self-replicating molecule,
a molecule that can both copy itself and mutate and, hence, evolve to more
efficient copying. Evolution works on variation and selection, and selection
is always measured in terms of more efficient multiplication, the ability to
make more of the entity in question. The concept of the RNA World is a way
of answering the basic
problem of what was the molecular biology involved at the beginning of life."
("Introns and the RNA World", Walter Gilbert & Sandro J. de Souza, chapter 9
of "The RNA World: Second Edition", Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory Press,
1999, p221)
In fact, most researchers dealing with the RNA World hypothesis not only
discuss evolution of mere molecules (that is, "naked" molecules, not
contained within cells), but also explicitly state such evolution to be
Darwinian.
"However, the ultimate way to address the replicase assumption would be to
(re)create an RNA polymerase ribozyme that can propagate itself and improved
variants of itself. In addition to validating the replicase assumption, such
a molecule would be the key ingredient for creating a self-sustained system
capable of Darwinian evolution - providing a valuable working model for the
RNA World, and breathing life back into RNA, the presume parent of all
contemporary
biopolymers and life forms." ("Re-creating an RNA Replicase", David P.
Bartel, chapter 5 of "The RNA World: Second Edition", Cold Springs Harbor
Laboratory Press, 1999, p143-144)
"If a self-replicating RNA is found, it will be interesting to examine how
long replication is sustained in a serial dilution experiment where the
experimenter provides continuous nourishment (primer and NTPs) and the
ribozyme supplies progeny. … It has been suggested that some improved
variants will develop a strategy for preferentially replicating their own
kind, spontaneously generating Darwinian evolution. It seems more likely,
however, that partitioning of the population (using, for example, membranes
or surface adsorption) will be required both to
enable the selfish replication needed for Darwinian evolution and to slow
dissemination of parasitic species, such as sequences that are superior
templates but deficient polymerases. If Darwinian evolution can be
established, it will be fascinating to follow the development of these
embryonic life forms." ("Re-creating an RNA Replicase", David P. Bartel,
chapter 5 of "The RNA World: Second Edition", Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory
Press, 1999, p159)
"If one accepts the notion of an RNA World, one is faced with the dilemma of
how such a genetic system came into existence. To say that RNA World
hypothesis "solves the paradox of the chicken and the egg" is correct if one
means that RNA can function both as a genetic molecule and as a catalyst that
promotes its own replication. RNA-catalyzed RNA replication provides a
chemical basis for Darwinian evolution based on natural selection. Darwinian
evolution is a powerful way to search among vast numbers of potential
solutions for those that best address a
particular problem. Selection based on inefficient RNA replication, for
example, could be used to search among a population of RNA molecules for
those individuals that promote improved RNA replication.". ("Prospects for
Understanding the Origin of the RNA World", Gerald F. Joyce & Leslie Orgel,
chapter 2 of "The RNA World: Second Edition", Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory
Press, 1999, p62)
"… Darwinian evolution is applied on a molecular scale to large
macromolecular populations through cycles of selections, amplifications, and
mutations, thus directing and enhancing the evolution of the desired
molecules." (Noam Lahav, Biogenesis: Theories of Life's Origins, Oxford
University Press, 1999, p193)
"The principle of Darwinian evolution is applicable in vitro when a
population of informational macromolecules is subjected to repeated rounds of
selective amplification and mutation. An earlier extracellular Darwinian
evolution experiment was done with variants of the Q[beta] bacteriophage
genomic RNA that were amplified on the basis of their ability to serve as a
substrate for the Q[beta] replicase protein. … In recent years, in vitro
evolution procedures have been generalized to encompass almost any nucleic
acid molecule, including those that have catalytic
function." ("Continuous in Vitro Evolution of Catalytic Function", Martin C.
Wright & Gerald F. Joyce, Science, vol 276, Number 5312, Issue of 25 April
1997, p614-617)
Even origin-of-life researchers not directly tied to the RNA World theory tie
Darwinian evolution directly to abiogenesis.
"Tides, wave action, and periodically erupting geysers, along with flashes of
lightning and blazes of sunlight and ultraviolet radiation from above, were
continually altering the environment and providing strong, immediate, an
specific selective forces that aided the emergence of life. In short, we
think that the fierce pressures of Darwin's natural selection played a
central role in the origin of life almost from the beginning and that life
would never have appeared without them.
Organisms are still at war with their environment today. The very first
living entities, and indeed even those almost-living collections of molecules
that must have proceeded them, were certainly locked in a struggle with their
environment as well." (Christopher Wills & Jeffrey Bada, The Spark of Life:
Darwin and the Primeval Soup, Perseus Publishing, 2000, pXII-XIII)
"But we know that even if one were to recreate in a laboratory flask a rich
and complex approximation of an early Earth soup, sterilize it, and then let
the flask sit on a shelf, it would sit there indefinitely without any signs
of life - or indeed any sign of Oparin's chemical evolution. There has to
have been a powerful mechanism behind the appearance of the first protobionts.
We propose in this book that what is missing in the chemical evolution
scenario must have been provided by the master of the evolutionary process,
Darwin himself. The current scenarios for chemical evolution force Darwin to
wait impatiently in the wings, able to do nothing until the first protobionts
appeared. But Darwinian evolution has strict rules, and at least some of
those rules must have been operating even before the beginning of life."
(Christopher Wills & Jeffrey Bada, The Spark of Life: Darwin and the Primeval
Soup, Perseus Publishing, 2000, pXV-XVI)
In addition, many books have been written by leading biologists that clearly,
and explicitly, link the two, such as Molecular Evolution and the Origin of
Life, by Sidney Fox (of proteinoid "fame") as well as many recent articles
involving in vitro evolution (evolution of molecules in test tubes).
Contemporary scientists absolutely accept the idea that mere chemicals can
undergo Darwinian evolution, and many use this idea in attempting to account
for the origin of life.
One might be inclined to dismiss these as a fairly recent 'twists' on
evolution, believing that the "founder" of evolution, Charles Darwin, surely
never mentioned a speculative account for the origin of life - that
individual would be wrong.
"It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a
living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if
(and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all
sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc.,
present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo
still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly
devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living
creatures were formed." (Darwin, C., 1871, Letter to Hooker.
Reproduced in Calvin, M. (1969). Chemical Evolution pp 1-8. Oxford
University Press, London: as quoted in "Did minerals perform prebiotic
combinatorial chemistry?", Alan W. Schwartz, Chemistry & Biology 1996,
3:515-518).
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