Zachriel: Because it contradicts the implication of your previous statement that biologically functional sequences are a problem for abiogenesis.

It is a problem that does not go away by pointing to catalytic properties as if the word catalytic was somehow a magical solution. Biology entails the study of living organisms and it is within that context that function is assessed. Sure sequences conferring cleaving functions can be found. My knife cleaves too. Unless you can connect some dots the extra-cellular cleaving sequences have as much relevance to generating life as my knife.

Enzymatic fermentation is a biological function, and enzymatic fermentation can occur in isolation from the cell.

So what?

If by your statement, and all your other heavy-laden verbiage, you just mean there is no complete theory of abiogenesis, then I remind you that that is not in dispute.

It's more than that. The theory is muddled.

What we do have is a lot of evidence pointing to a natural origin for life, and no evidence of artifice.

That's your personal opinion. Extra-cellular catalytic reactions are not a lot of evidence. Neither are spark discharge experiments and the generation of random batches of biomolecules.

Bradford: If reactions occur entailing actions like splicing in a prebiotic soup my reaction is so what?

Because it contradicts the implication of your previous statement that biologically functional sequences are a problem for abiogenesis. Enzymatic fermentation is a biological function, and enzymatic fermentation can occur in isolation from the cell. If by your statement, and all your other heavy-laden verbiage, you just mean there is no complete theory of abiogenesis, then I remind you that that is not in dispute. What we do have is a lot of evidence pointing to a natural origin for life, and no evidence of artifice.

Bradford: We say that enzymes have biological functions because they function within biological entities.

I really wish you wouldn't redefine well-established usage.

Nobel Committee: In 1897 Eduard Buchner, the German research worker, discovered that sugar can be made to ferment, not only with ordinary yeast, but also with the help of the expressed juices of yeast which contain none of the cells of the Saccharomyces. The discovery was considered so important that in 1907 Buchner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry… It was remarkable enough when Buchner found that certain of the functions of the living cell can be separated out from it, …

In other words, enzymes have biological function outside the cell.

History of Biochemistry: In 1897 Eduard Buchner began to study the ability of yeast extracts to ferment sugar despite the absence of living yeast cells. In a series of experiments at the University of Berlin, he found that the sugar was fermented even when there were no living yeast cells in the mixture. He named the enzyme that brought about the fermentation of sucrose "zymase". In 1907 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his biochemical research and his discovery of cell-free fermentation". Following Buchner's example; enzymes are usually named according to the reaction they carry out. Typically the suffix -ase is added to the name of the substrate (e.g., lactase is the enzyme that cleaves lactose) or the type of reaction (e.g., DNA polymerase forms DNA polymers).

Having shown that enzymes could function outside a living cell, the next step was to determine their biochemical nature.

The Chemical Nature of Enzymes is one of the great discoveries in biochemistry.

We don't expect the theory of gravity to explain why the Earth weighs 5.9736×1024 KG, yet gravity explains the Earth's formation. But apparently you think that if Chemistry can't explain why there are three nucleotides in a codon instead of one or two or four or twenty or a variable number then that rules out Chemistry as having created the codon.

It's not the numbers. Why would a chemical reaction yield placeholders for amino acids as well as initiation and stop codons? How does an incremental precellular process produce this?

Zachriel: We say that an enzyme has a biological function. Cleaving is a function. Enzymes can function outside the cell.

We say that enzymes have biological functions because they function within biological entities. Since catalyzed reactions need not even involve biomolecules what is proven when a reaction takes place involving substances x and y outside a cell? If this and other catalytic reactions "team up" and produce a self-reproducing cellular activilty, like generating energy to sustain a biological system, then you have something more interesting.

Zachriel: I'll take that as a correction, then, of your previous statement that generating "biologically functional sequences" is an unresolved problem for abiogenetic research.

Bradford: The purpose of the machine parts analogy is illustrated by this response. Biological function is more than a biochemical part.

We say that an enzyme has a biological function. Cleaving is a function. Enzymes can function outside the cell.

Bradford: We cannnot rule out chance as a possibility for many things but that would not be a scientific theory would it. Besides we know enough about cells to have good reason to believe a chance outcome is extremely unlikely.

While chance is not an explanation for anything it is not something science ignores; many valid hypothesis have elements of chance. In fact anywhere you see probability used is a model of chance. Its not a black-and-white "must happen" verse "can't happen", its all about the likelihood of something happening.

Bradford: No, that is not my operating assumption when unknowns exist. In this case we have clear evidence of structures i.e. codons that function as physical symbols. We also have knowledge that similar symbolic useage is associated with advanced intelligence and no reason, grounded in chemistry, to expect natural processes to generate this type of feature.

We don't expect the theory of gravity to explain why the Earth weighs 5.9736×1024 KG, yet gravity explains the Earth's formation. But apparently you think that if Chemistry can't explain why there are three nucleotides in a codon instead of one or two or four or twenty or a variable number then that rules out Chemistry as having created the codon.

You have used language like this before, it seems that you only would accept a forced chain of direct causation. Why do you say "whose end result must be" rather than "whose end result could be"? Really I'm just curious, this seems to be a metaphysical denial that chance could play any role what-so-ever in the origin of life. Perhaps that's not your intent, but I am left with that impression.

We cannnot rule out chance as a possibility for many things but that would not be a scientific theory would it. Besides we know enough about cells to have good reason to believe a chance outcome is extremely unlikely.

Regardless, this matters little to the point you're trying to make. As far as I can tell your point is "a knowledge gap remains between catalyzed reactions and the first cell, therefore god did it."

No, that is not my operating assumption when unknowns exist. In this case we have clear evidence of structures i.e. codons that function as physical symbols. We also have knowledge that similar symbolic useage is associated with advanced intelligence and no reason, grounded in chemistry, to expect natural processes to generate this type of feature.