On Tue, 20 Feb 1996 21:35:55 -0500 you wrote:
BH>I found the following post from Hubert Yockey on sci.bio.evolution
>and thought it might be of interest to the group.
>
>If Yockey's analysis is correct, then it seems Loeb has been denied
>his proper place in history due to a mis-translation of carbon
>dioxide !
I find it interesting that scientific research into a naturalistic
origin of life has been unsuccessful for 83 years and not 43 years as
I originally thought! This must be worthy for an entry in the Guiness
Book of Records, for the longest unsuccessful pursuit of a scientific
idea? Much has been written about how admirable it is for naturalists
to not give up easily. But when does dogged persistence become
obsessive folly? 43 years? 83 years? 103 years? :-)
BH>I would also be interested in opinions from geologists,
>geochemists,
>paleontologists (I'm fishing for the appropriate "expert" category)
>regarding lack of evidence for the soup in the 3.8 billion year
>old Isua rocks. I did a little research on this awhile back and
>found some references where "experts" were expecting to find geological
>evidence for the soup.
You are no doubt aware that Thaxton, Bradley & Olsen have a chapter
entitled "The Myth of the Prebiotic Soup" in their book: "The Mystery
of Life's Origin", 1992, p66, which has extensive references? Here is
what they say:
"Based on the foregoing geochemical assessment, we conclude that
both in the atmosphere and in the various water basins of the
primitive earth, many destructive interactions would have so vastly
diminished, if not altogether consumed, essential precursor chemicals,
that chemical evolution rates would have been negligible. The soup
would have been too dilute for direct polymerization to occur. Even
local ponds for concentrating soup ingredients would have met with
the same problem. Furthermore, no geological evidence indicates an
organic soup, even a small organic pond, ever existed on this planet.
It is becoming clear that however life began on earth, the usually
conceived notion that life emerged from an oceanic soup of organic
chemicals is a most implausible hypothesis. We may therefore with
fairness call this scenario `the myth of the prebiotic soup.' "
(Thaxton C.B., Bradley W.L. & Olsen R.L., "The Mystery of Life's
Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, Lewis & Stanley: Dallas TX,
1992, p66).
BH>Also, the meteorite bombardment seems significant to me. Earlier
>on,
>these meteorite impacts were capable of sterilizing the entire planet
>and even vaporizing the oceans. Their subsidence coincides (on a
>geological time scale of course) with the first evidence of life.
>This would indicate that the appearance of life was very rapid and
>would also indicate that the "soup" (if there was one) should still
>be around.
Yes. This is of course what would be expected if the origin of life
was not a fully naturalistic process, but the working of an
Intelligent Designer. But of course, naturalistic science cannot even
consider the possibility of a supernatural Intelligent Designer, and
what's worse, it does its best to ensure that no one else can either.
[...]
BH>Stanley Miller, in his 1955 paper, "Production of some organic
>compounds under possible primitive Earth conditions". Journal of the
>American Chemical Society volume 77, pp2351-2361 (1955). cited the 1913
>reference in which Lob reported finding glycine in the silent discharge.
>He mistakenly stated that Loeb used carbon monoxide in his silent electric
>discharge tube. If that had that been the case it would give the
>impression that Loeb was not interested in finding "prebiotic compounds"
>in the electric discharge. Upon actually reading Loeb's papers in German,
>I found that he plainly had not carried out his experiments in carbon
>monoxide but rather in damp carbon dioxide and ammonia, the same
>environment often presumed (mistakenly) by Miller and Urey and many others
>to have been that of the early Earth. This false impression is due to a
>mistranslation and that may be why Loeb's priority in this work has been
>ignored. The German word for carbon monoxide is Kohlenoxyd, the word for
>carbon dioxide is Kohlensaeure (literally, carbonic acid)-terms that are
>easy enough to tell apart.
>As late as 1983 Miller and Schleschinger J. Mol. Evol. v19 pp376-382 quote
>Loeb's 1913 paper as using carbon monoxide not the correct carbon dioxide.
Much is made of Gish allegedly mistranslating a German word (actually
he personally didn't - but why spoil a good story? <g>), yet here we
have a clear case of mistranslation that has had far greater
implications. It is difficult to believe that no German OOL scholar
(there are many) had not read Loeb's work and realised that Miller had
got it wrong. It is more than interesting that it took a
non-Darwinist scholar like Yockey to: a) notice the mistranslation
and b) publish it. If this is ignored, and Loeb not given his
rightful priority, then it would seem to indicate that here we have a
case of paradigm blindness at best and fraudulent cover up at worst?
[...]
BH>The significance of the very old kerogen in the Isua rocks in
>Greenland is that there never was a primeval soup and that living matter
>must have existed abundantly on Earth before 3.8 billion years ago.
>
>Lazcano and Miller J. Mol. Evol v39 pp546-554 (1994) admitted that: "Late
>accretion impacts may have killed off life on our planet as late as 3.8
>billion years ago." The date of the Isua kerogen (3.8 billion years old)
>shows that life was swarming at that time. There is simply not enough time
>between the last sterilizing impact event for the generation of a primeval
>soup and for the appearance of a proto biont that must have had the
>enzymes capable of assimilating both carbon dioxide and nitrogen.
So, if there was no prebiotic soup, how *did* enough amino acids exist
together at one time in order for a chance joining up of enough of the
first polymers which would then lead on to the first self-replicating
biosystem. Darwinism needs this chemical evolution scenario badly.
If it occurred by Panspermia, self-organisation or (shock, horror!)
Intelligent Design, then Darwinism could not then claim that its
"blind watchmaker" is the only way that adaptive complexity
arose.
BH>For further comment and references on the non existence of a
>primeval soup
>in the oceans on the early Earth see Chapters 8, 9 and 10 in Information
>Theory and Molecular Biology, Cambridge University Press (1992); BioEssays
>v 85-88 (1995) and Journal of Theoretical Biology v176 349-355 (1995).
I am interested in emails of any other papers by Yockey. Robert van
deWater has urged me to get Yockey's book (available from Hugh Ross'
Reasons to Believe).
Once again, thanks.
God bless.
Stephen
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