What's the best way to answer this question about the origin of life?

Question

I love to debate religion and came across this q:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070621163737AA1mRy6
[question is "why can't scientists take the materials needed and create a cell"]

You can see my answer if you want, but it's been at least 15 years since I've had a biology class. I'd love to see your responses or maybe a theory on how the single celled objects might have first come about. I'm looking to refine my knowledge of the current working theories as well as your own personal thoughts.

labsci, you laugh, but it is a real issue here in Virginia. They are trying to push creationism into the school system!!!

http://www.richmond.com/education/output.aspx?Article_ID=4707910&Vertical_ID=131&tier=1&position=4

Thx everyone!

Answer 1

Well, you hold knowledge quite well. First there was "primordial ooze," which basically consisted of organic chemicals, like the building blocks of DNA and proteins, i.e. amino acids and nucleic acids. And scientists have been able to create the circumstances of ancient earth in a laboratory and have formed there own organic chemicals.

Answer 2

The reason is mostly about scale. When we manufacture things (at least complex things) we always use a machine, or tool or process that is much smaller than what we are making.

We use paint brushes to paint large walls and really, really small paint brushes to paint really really small things. We use small weights on a scale to measure large weights on a scale's pan. We use very small microwaves to heat up larger things in the microwave.

Now, so far, we have tools to get really really small. Electrons. But also so far, we can only do this in two dimensions. A cell is just too small to construct with the tools we have on hand. So far, the best tools are other cells and cellular ingredients like enzymes.

Now, suppose I make some DNA with the tools of chemistry (which is a one dimensional project and uses chemical- which means electrical 'tools'). If I put that DNA into some cell and it uses the cellular machinery to make another cell, even one that has never existed in nature before- have I made a cell? To say that it is no fair starting with a cell to make a cell would be to deny me the tools I need to do it with.
We just can't manipulate individual molecules to the extent it would take (and in 3D!) to make a cell from base materials.

Answer 3

1. Evolutionary Theory does not extend any farther than the origin of Biodiversity. It's like expecting Germ Theory to answer the existence of the universe... 2. For the existence of the universe, the problem comes from the simple fact that temporality, spatiality and matter/energy were generated by the singularity and "big bang" event. To pose the question "what caused the big bang is inherently contradictory, because cause and affect require the existence of temporality (time) in order to exist, which was created by the singularity. From this simple information that there can be no cause for the beginning of the universe, or at least the cause is in no sense that works by the laws we can perceive. Without extra information to prove the existence of "other laws" I assume the current laws universally apply by reasonable basis and conclude that the existence (pre time, space and matter/enegry) has always existed. Simple as that.

Answer 4

I don't think it is near statistically "possible" to make a nerve cell. It is almost statistically infinitesimally small to form a functioning enzyme, of a hundred or so amino acids, by chance out of 20 odd amino acids. (work it out) The latest evidence* is that the human genome is not made primarily of junk DNA but every codon is translated into RNA the function of most of which is still unkown. To put all the functioning DNA of a nerve cell together from chance is even more near statistically impossible.

Life was formed out of the dust of the earth (which is the dust of stars) and this is true whether you believe in the evolutionary origin of the nerve cell by chance from primordial molecules or believe in a supernatural force (God) that designed it from such and "breathed life into it." It is a moot question because scientists are no closer to doing it now in the 21st century than when I first heard of Stanley Miller's ( born 1930 and who died not too many months ago) experiments on the creation of life in the early 1950's.

But men of faith have an answer. Scientists have a lot of faith that creation of life can be done in the laboratory and the religious have faith that it has already been done to their satisfaction. Faith is necessary for the progress of life so why are these two factions fighting with one another?

I'll tell you why: it is because each wants everyone to believe like him/her whereas that sameness would be so boring we would all die of it. The "nerve" of them!

Answer 5

In total agreement with the first answer. Well done.

If scientists can create DNA, proteins, amino acids etc. From a chemists point of view, creating a cell is certainly a possiblity, its just a matter of bringing it all together.

The truth is science has no need to, why create something of which there is an excess of? Isn't it easier to allow a cell in a petri dish to divide by mitosis, or allow a stem cell to specialise and become a nerve cell, rather than wasting time and effort into creating a new cell which serves no useful purpose?

Answer 6

In the laboratory, scientists have placed organic chemicals in a bath of water, jolted them with simulated lightning, and produced complex amino acids. Other labs have repeated the experiement, instead slowly freezing the solution, with the same results. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, and they seem to self-assemble given the right conditions. Many living organisms are smaller and simpler than a cell. Viruses are essentially tiny snippets of DNA. Prions, a recently discovered substance so simple scientists are reluctant to even call it alive, are just bits of protein, yet they replicate and satisfy most of the definitions of life.

It's not hard to imagine one of these simple constructions happily replicating in a shallow sea somewhere. One simple precursor to life encounters another and attaches or absorbs it, becoming more complex. A mutation occuring that leads to the growth of an outer membrane. The "attachment" process becomes feeding. Simple organisms are incorporated into the cell to become organelles. And on we go.

Scientists are not far from duplicating the entire process. The argument should come to an end with a dramatic announcement soon. But never fear, the forces of darkness will retreat to another bastion of ignorance, as they always have.

Answer 7

Well, there was the whole Miller-Urey experiment thingy. It wasn't perfect, but it was a good start, with interesting results.

And it isn't "accidental." The questioner makes it sound like a bucket of water was tipped over a ledge, and it turned into a zebra when it hit the ground. The problem, I find, is that you can't even begin to expain evolution to some people because without ever having read any papers on it, they've already decided for themselves what they think it explains- and to a wo/man they tend to be completely wrong. ...To be sure, the Origin of the Species is pretty dry for the first few sections.

Answer 8

Your answer is just fine.

The simpler answer is that the question is based on the ridiculous fallacy that until we can duplicate a process, we can't say we understand it.

For example, we know a lot about how stars and planets form.. but that doesn't mean we can make a star or a planet.

We often know how a lot of processes work that we cannot duplicate for various practical reasons.

Scientists are quite open about what they know and don't know.

The don't know exactly how life started (but they have several good ideas they're working on).

But they do know how life evolved once it did start.

Answer 9

Time would be the limiting factor here. Scientists cannot possibly study processes that took years and years to happen. They'd be dead before the cells would appear. In the 24-hour contracted time line of evolution (at least as it appears in textbooks) humans only appeared at the last second, just before midnight. Also I think it would really be difficult to even just approximate earth conditions when evolution of the first cells was happening.

Answer 10

If you took a 747, dissassembled it completely, and spread the parts out in front of me, I couldn't put it back together.

Now imagine that the parts are so small that I can't even manipulate them at all, and I don't have any tools that fit, and if I tried, I'd end up breaking the parts I was working with. That's a cell.