3 ms·

Here's a talk by one of the world’s top synthetic organic chemists offering a blunt assessment of the current state of origin of life research: https://youtu.be

Here's a talk by one of the world’s top synthetic organic chemists offering a blunt assessment of the current state of origin of life research: https://youtu.be/zU7Lww-sBPg?t=15 https://youtu.be/zU7Lww-sBPg?t=15

freedomben 7y ago
If you're somebody that likes to know people's backgrounds/biases, James Tour (the speaker here) is a Christian [1]. [1]: https://reasonsforjesus.com/respected-science-professor-dr-james-tour-converts-to-christianity-after-seeing-jesus/ https://reasonsforjesus.com/respected-science-professor-dr-j...
- deleted 7y ago
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gus_massa 7y ago
From the first comment: > "amino acids don't hook together by themselves" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU7Lww-sBPg&t=26m58s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU7Lww-sBPg&t=26m58s This is a very weird remark considering that the article posted here is about how amino acids hook together by themselves, and which amino acids hook in the correct way and which hook in the incorrect way. --- It's a long talk (1h). Which are the main points? I only skimmed, so I hope I have a not very unfair selection: * We don't know the details about how life begun. I agree. I think we all agree. * Most press articles (and many research article) are overhyped. I agree. Can I get a bot to post that in every scientific post in HN? * The recipes to build organic molecules are complex, with many steps that are not posible to find in the wild (somewhat like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU7Lww-sBPg&t=12m47s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU7Lww-sBPg&t=12m47s , and many slides with technical details after that) I agree. The problem is that the recipe for the natural formation of some compounds is something like "Get a big pool like the Mediterranean, kill all the bacterias so they don't eat the mix of chemical compounds, wait a million years. And then you will get only an efficiency of 0.0000001." And probably nobody is sure that it is the correct recipe, perhaps it need some metal as catalyzer, perhaps light, perhaps darkness, perhaps lack of oxygen, ... So the recipes he show in the slides are about how to get the same compounds in a lab, preferably in some flask that you can put over a table, waiting only a few hour, with something like a 10% or 1% of efficiency. So you must use weird conditions. In particular in the slide in 12:47 it's weird to put Miller in the last bullet point when the first two bullet points don't apply to the Miller experiment at all. The slide is not wrong, just very misleading.

freedomben 7y ago

If you're somebody that likes to know people's backgrounds/biases, James Tour (the speaker here) is a Christian [1]. [1]: https://reasonsforjesus.com/respected-science-professor-dr-james-tour-converts-to-christianity-after-seeing-jesus/ https://reasonsforjesus.com/respected-science-professor-dr-j...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

gus_massa 7y ago

From the first comment: > "amino acids don't hook together by themselves" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU7Lww-sBPg&t=26m58s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU7Lww-sBPg&t=26m58s This is a very weird remark considering that the article posted here is about how amino acids hook together by themselves, and which amino acids hook in the correct way and which hook in the incorrect way. --- It's a long talk (1h). Which are the main points? I only skimmed, so I hope I have a not very unfair selection: * We don't know the details about how life begun. I agree. I think we all agree. * Most press articles (and many research article) are overhyped. I agree. Can I get a bot to post that in every scientific post in HN? * The recipes to build organic molecules are complex, with many steps that are not posible to find in the wild (somewhat like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU7Lww-sBPg&t=12m47s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU7Lww-sBPg&t=12m47s , and many slides with technical details after that) I agree. The problem is that the recipe for the natural formation of some compounds is something like "Get a big pool like the Mediterranean, kill all the bacterias so they don't eat the mix of chemical compounds, wait a million years. And then you will get only an efficiency of 0.0000001." And probably nobody is sure that it is the correct recipe, perhaps it need some metal as catalyzer, perhaps light, perhaps darkness, perhaps lack of oxygen, ... So the recipes he show in the slides are about how to get the same compounds in a lab, preferably in some flask that you can put over a table, waiting only a few hour, with something like a 10% or 1% of efficiency. So you must use weird conditions. In particular in the slide in 12:47 it's weird to put Miller in the last bullet point when the first two bullet points don't apply to the Miller experiment at all. The slide is not wrong, just very misleading.