Origin of Life: Three Recent Studies

No, it hasn’t been figured out yet, but they’re still working on it. That’s one way to distinguish real science from creation science. The former is functional, dynamic, and useful. The latter is … well, stick around to the end of this post and you’ll see.

We begin by bringing two scientific studies to your attention. The first is from the Carnegie Institution for Science, also called the Carnegie Institution of Washington, or “CIW,” to distinguish it from various entities named Carnegie in Pittsburgh. The second study is from Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly called Georgia Tech).

Let’s look at the Carnegie story first, which is titled Formaldehyde: Poison could have set the stage for the origins of life. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us:

Formaldehyde, a poison and a common molecule throughout the universe, is likely the source of the solar system’s organic carbon solids — abundant in both comets and asteroids. Scientists have long speculated about the how organic, or carbon-containing, material became a part of the solar system’s fabric. New research from Carnegie’s George Cody, along with Conel Alexander and Larry Nittler, shows that these complex organic solids were likely made from formaldehyde in the primitive solar system. Their work is published online April 4 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Here’s a link to the paper: Establishing a molecular relationship between chondritic and cometary organic solids. Back to the Carnegie story:

Prior to this study numerous competing ideas emerged to explain the existence of primitive organic solids. Cody, of the Geophysical Laboratory, along with Alexander and Nittler, of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, and the team decided to study primitive solar system objects using advanced methods. What they discovered clearly pointed to a polymer formed from formaldehyde.

One more excerpt:

Their results make sense, because formaldehyde is relatively abundant throughout the galaxy and the polymerization process would have been possible under conditions of the primitive solar system.

“Establishing the likely origin of the principal source of organic carbon in primitive solar system bodies is extremely satisfying,”Cody said.

Now we turn to the Georgia Tech story, titled Ancient Enzymes: Adaptation in Proteins Provides Evidence that Organisms on Early Earth Lived in a Hot, Acidic Environment. It says, with bold font added by us:

A new study reveals that a group of ancient enzymes adapted to substantial changes in ocean temperature and acidity during the last four billion years, providing evidence that life on Early Earth evolved from a much hotter, more acidic environment to the cooler, less acidic global environment that exists today.

Ancient enzymes adapted? Okay, let’s read on:

“This study shows that a group of ubiquitous proteins operated in a hot, acidic environment during early life, which supports the view that the environment progressively cooled and became more alkaline between four billion and 500 million years ago,” said Eric Gaucher, an associate professor in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Here’s a link to the paper published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology: Single-molecule paleoenzymology probes the chemistry of resurrected enzymes. One more excerpt from the Georgia Tech article:

Using a technique called ancestral sequence reconstruction, Gaucher and Georgia Tech biology graduate student Zi-Ming Zhao reconstructed seven ancient thioredoxin enzymes from the three domains of life — archaea, bacteria and eukaryote — that date back between one and four billion years old.

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“By resurrecting proteins, we are able to gather valuable information about the adaptation of extinct forms of life to climatic, ecological and physiological alterations that cannot be uncovered through fossil record examinations,” said Gaucher.

Your Curmudgeon isn’t going to discuss the details of either study. That’s not why you come here. We merely want to show that science — real science — is an ongoing enterprise that attempts to study and rationally explain the observable world. But you know that already. You’re waiting for the creationism. Okay, having stayed with us this long, here it comes.

In contrast to the scientific studies, we offer this article by a “creation scientist” that appears at the website of Answers in Genesis (AIG), one of the major sources of young-earth creationist wisdom. AIG is the the online ministry of Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo), the ayatollah of Appalachia: The Origin of Life: A Problem for Evolution. A couple of brief excerpts will give you the general idea:

Scientists who promote a spontaneous origin of life without a creator begin with the assumption that God does not exist. Then they devise an imaginative scenario whereby molecules come together to form a living being. Since the evolutionists have an “explanation”, they use it to insist that life can arise without God. This is simply circular reasoning.

[...]

For the Christian, the origin of life is not a problem at all. The bible says that God called all plants and animals into existence by his Word.

So there you are, dear reader. We’ve given you some examples of actual science at work, and for contrast we’ve given you an example of creation science. The choice is yours: Science or Oogity Boogity!

Copyright © 2011. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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