Note that Mike didn't answer my points and didn't explain why the designer would use the biochemical equivalent of a deflated tire to guide a car in a certain direction.

Hmmm…Yes, I can see where a deflated tire would help guide a car in a certain direction. Nick claims that Mike didn't answer his points. Mike claims that he remembers things differently. Anybody have some links, so we can judge for ourselves?

TP: Help me out. If nanobes have only RNA, would the tests they ran for detecting DNA still have shown positive? (your evidentiary requirement for an RNA World).

I read one research paper about nanobes tonight. Researchers detected evidence of DNA but not RNA. However the test used involved a method wherein RNA signals could become swamped by the DNA detection effort. IOW, RNA might have existed and gone undetected. We apparently know very little about the details of nanobe activity and possible structures associated with it.

Incidentally, my "evidentiary requirement" entails sequences whose identity and order are causally connected to biological function. The nature of the nucleic acid is not as important as the sequential order of its nucleotides.

You asked…

What conclusion do you derive from the existence of nanobes?

At this point the existence of nanobes is just provoking thinking not firm conclusions.

While the scientific community asks if nanobes are living it will undoubtedly cause a re-evaluation of what qualifies as life.

My reference to "quasi-life" was a segue into a similar situation with quasi-crystals. When aperiodic crystal formations were found (supposedly impossible) the mineralists compromised and called them quasi-crystals.

I expect a similar battle to rage with nanobes (also supposedly impossible).

From this link…

Dr. Philippa Uwins, a sedimentary geologist from the University of Queensland, Australia, discovered nanobes in Jurassic and Triassic sandstones from Australia in 1996. She and her research team are hesitant to term their nanobes "nanobacteria" until they are more certain of their evolutionary history and their general nature. She and her team have recently performed molecular analyses of these nanobes and found evidence for the presence of DNA as indicated by DAPI (Wikipedia definition), Acridine Orange (web definition), and Feulgen staining (web definition). In addition, they appear to be membrane-bound structures that are possibly surrounded by cytoplasm and nuclear area and are composed of C, N, and O, chemical constituents associated with living biota (Uwins, et al., 1998 (more info) ).

From the 1998 paper…

Nanobe growths on copper, polystyrene and glass substrates.
Nanobes also appeared to grow spontaneously on copper SEM sample mounts, polystyrene (Fig. 5), and glass Petri dishes in aerobic conditions at 22 8C. Inoculation of substrates appears to have been from the sandstones that were adjacent to the substrates. Nanobe colonies were observed on these other substrates over a period of several days to several months. Once established these colonies became visible to the unaided eye (0.1"“0.2 mm; Fig. 5, top) as opaque, white, brown, or gray filamentous colonies.

Of particular interest was the observation that contamination with organic compounds appears to have promoted the growth of nanobes because some microcolonies were arranged to form replicas of fingerprints on the surfaces of the polystyrene Petri dishes. This growth form may indicate that nanobes have a heterotrophic metabolism. Although the origin of the nanobes on the polystyrene Petri dishes is uncertain, they are similar in appearance and in size to those found on the fresh fractured sandstone surfaces shown in Figure 4. It follows that because the Petri dishes were exposed to sandstones rich in nanobes, it is likely that the source of the nanobes on the fingerprints was by inoculation from spores in the sandstones.

Of course professional scientists have to be extremely conservative with this kind of stuff. To this simple engineer, if nanobes are made up of organic compounds and reproduce, they are probably living. Of course this could all be a big misunderstanding and multiple scientists are mistaken, but it is going on ten years and the evidence of nanobes isn't going away, in fact we are finding more and more of the little buggers.

Nanobe structures have been found within organisms as well as rocks. While their existence is relatively new knowledge, some speculate that nanobes may even outnumber bacteria by an order of magnitude!

Nanobes may also exist on other planets! Martian meteorites such as ALH84001 (more info) have been speculated to contain trace fossils of nanobacteria. The softball-sized igneous meteorite shows microscopic worm-like and "ovid" nanofossils.

Help me out. If nanobes have only RNA, would the tests they ran for detecting DNA still have shown positive? (your evidentiary requirement for an RNA World).

Something to think about.

I realize OOL is very important to you.

Me, as opposed to those who devote their energies and time to research related to OOL? The only reason one would have for downgrading the importance of life's origins is that data, generated by related research, does not support one's views relevant to teleology.

But until you are ready to make a stand it is just so much hot air. For example, it is a non-sequitur to suggest that the existence of an RNA World is a "claim that the cause of life is attributable to unidentifiable chemical pathways that are devoid of evidence of purpose and intelligent causality".

That's an accurate depiction of the reality of OOL. Pathways are unidentified and teleology excluded from the mix.

This isn't any more or less suggested by the existence of the DNA World.

Agreed.

You offered your philosophical opinion, not a scientific alternative, IMO.

I do not see anything philospohical in the depiction of OOL research. Have you identified pathways to life? If not then the insistence that they exist independently of teleology is a philosophical POV.

Meanwhile, how long are you going to continue to ignore nanobes?

What conclusion do you derive from the existence of nanobes?

I realize OOL is very important to you. But until you are ready to make a stand on an alternative it is just so much hot air. For example, it is a non-sequitur to suggest an RNA World hypothesis is a "claim that the cause of life is attributable to unidentifiable chemical pathways that are devoid of evidence of purpose and intelligent causality". This isn't any more or less suggested by the existence of the DNA World.

You offered your philosophical opinion, not a scientific alternative, IMO.

Meanwhile, how long are you going to continue to ignore nanobes?

I only have time to focus on a few key areas. It matters little to the grand picture whether the RNA World view is correct or not.

To the contrary TP, it matters quite a lot. If proponents of the view produced experimental evidence indicating that a self-replicating RNA was causally traceable to prebiotic earth conditions and then subsequently multiplied and changed until reaching a point where an RNA descendent actually had genomic features enabling the synthesis of nucleic acids that interacted to effect biological functions for some obvious precursor life form, you would have Nobel like and earth shattering news. If positive results count for much why would negative ones be discounted?

I would easily consider an alternative that provides similar detail and supporting logic/evidence.

The level of support does not rise to the level of theoretical claims. In fact it does not come close at all. So it is not saying much to be able to cite alternative claims.

Do you happpen to know of such an alternative? If not, oh well.

The alternative to the claim that the cause of life is attributable to unidentifiable chemical pathways that are devoid of evidence of purpose and intelligent causality is either:

(a) Causes that have identifiable pathways to life or

(b) Data that gives evidence of causes that are purposeful or intelligent in nature.

Good one.

Are you new here? I haven't be around much lately, so forgive me for not knowing who you are.

You wrote…

Sure. It's called causality, and it works for classical events also.

Non-locality in quantum physics works in both directions. There is no evidentiary reason to suggest the same doesn't hold true in the dimension of time.

It goes against common sense because of the illogic of causal paradoxes.

However, evidence from quantum physic experiments has demonstrated that causal paradoxes just don't happen. Any observations made that could detect such paradoxes changes the physics. Radically, if necessary.

Here is a link to my post called The Magic of Intelligent Design where I discuss the ramifications of GHZ quantum mechanics experiments.

You wrote…

Yes. But I thought you were talking about the RNA world.

I only have time to focus on a few key areas. It matters little to the grand picture whether the RNA World view is correct or not. I would easily consider an alternative that provides similar detail and supporting logic/evidence. Do you happpen to know of such an alternative? If not, oh well.

If the ramifications of the bioquantum physics (new term) go where I think they will, OOL will become trivial obviousness. If ready-made quantum computers exist in nature, life is inevidable and possible at scales a lot smaller than we thought.

Consider that we only recently discovered nanobes on Earth. Once we noticed they existed, we began finding them EVERYWHERE.

Bradford, what if we start finding nanobes in space now that we know what to look for?

link

Frankly, it matters little whether we consider nanobes life, prelife or psuedo-life. It looks like nanobes reproduce and contain DNA material.

I wanted to make a full-fledged guest post out of this, but I just don't have the time. Work is crazy. I had to force myself to take this time off.

Will you accept the possibility, if not the probability, that past and future quantum effects ARE interconnected?

Sure. It's called causality, and it works for classical events also.

Ah, but will you stick to that policy no matter how uncomfortable?

We have plenty of experimental data demonstrating the interconnectedness of quantum effects.

We also have plenty of experimental data demonstrating the reality of space-time geometry.

We have NO experminental data demonstrating any kind of barrier preventing the interconnectedness of quantum effects over time.

Will you accept the possibility, if not the probability, that past and future quantum effects ARE interconnected?

Yes. But I thought you were talking about the RNA world.