Chapter category: Evolution
The Condensation of Life
The Genomic Potential Hypothesis: A Chemist's View of the Origins, Evolution and Unfolding of Life
Edited by: Christian SchwabeISBN: 1-58706-044-2
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Chapter authors:
Christian Schwabe
The course of biogenesis was carved into molecular structures by the events of the primeval initiation of our universe. The speed at which pure energy segregated into baryonic matter leads one to think that there was no other possibility. (Physicists quipped that God may not have had a choice in the matter). The Genomic Potential Hypothesis extends this inevitability concept into the biogenic events and, the speed at which life assembled itself from molecules immediately (by geological standards) after the earth had become stable enough for chemical processes, certainly invites the conclusion that luck had no part in this matter either.
Darwinians view the origin of life as a lucky strike.1, 2 Chance events, however, are irreducible and irreproducible so that comparison between the old and the new model becomes possible only from the moment when life had been established. Of course, every one invokes chemistry when it comes to the origin of life but for chemistry the ‘single’ is out of character. Nonetheless, the consequences of any origin of life scenario should be expressed in the fossil record and this is the part where comparison of models becomes possible. In as much as the Darwinists deal with the topic of this chapter with one word (chance), the Genomic Potential Hypothesis is alone in its effort to build a conceptual basis for biogenesis.
In the new hypothesis biogenesis is a series of processes that must be justified by the basic rules of the relevant scientific discipline, chemistry, and must lead to verifiable predictions. The genomist predicts that innumerable origins evolved at many places on earth and that chemistry was the rectifier that caused uniformity at basic levels of biochemistry up to and including the genomic code. Thus, it is the burden of the genomist to replace the chance events of the old model with a series of principally known reactions of predictable consequences.
Every component for cell assembly has to be there in large numbers at many places and functional when the individual units slide into the state of life. These ‘multi-origin’ ideas have been around3-6 but did not fall on fertile ground, and what remained of these mavericks’ polyphyletic thoughts was wiped out by the discovery of the universality of the genetic code and the erroneous conclusions drawn from that observation.
Additional chapters from this book:
The Genomic Potential Hypothesis: Introduction
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The Genomic Potential Hypothesis is a biochemists' view of the origin, evolution, and development of life. Large numbers are second nature to a biochemist an...
Quintessence
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Steven Weinberg once said that the complexity of physics today reaches very close to the edge of the human intellect.1 Where would that leave us, the bioch...
Experiments in Evolution
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Conceptual science interfaces with the experimental world as predictions emanate from the internal logic of a paradigm. Hypotheses concerning the origin and unfolding...
Molecular Geneology
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Is it rational to expect proteins such as insulin, relaxin, hemoglobin, or cytochrome to have followed the evolutionary route of the organisms from which they were taken? Of course it is , but...
On the Evolution of Humans
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Ancient bones are somewhat like wind vanes that show from which direction a particular hypothesis breezes across the fossil field. If a paradigm is useful one should ...
The Invariance Concept
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Tucked away, if it were possible, within the hollow of the tip of a dart gun needle aimed at man or beast one could make a memorable discovery. Just a moment after sk...
Natura non facit saltum (Nature does nothing in jumps)
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Latin is intimidating, and people tend to defer to anything expressed in that venerable language. Of all the errors chiseled into our cultural foundation in Latin, th...
Thoughts on Multi-Cellularity: How Nature got Around Darwin
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Reproductive success is the ultimate criterion for survival in the Darwinian paradigm, and since micro-organisms are undisputed champions of reproduction the countles...
Development of Biological Potential
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Should development come after speciation? Yes, of course, in the new model it is natural, one produces the Anlage and develops it to its potential. The word evolution...
The Origins of Species
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There was never a time on earth when only one kind, one species, existed. At least there is no evidence to that effect and a plausible extension of that simple though...
The Condensation of Life
Christian Schwabe
The course of biogenesis was carved into molecular structures by the events of the primeval initiation of our universe. The speed at which pure energy segregated into...
Our Young Planet: One is not a Choice
Christian Schwabe
The old model begins with one origin and the biochemist knows that to be impossible. The scientific basis for the genomist’s position has been discussed and will...
The Origin of Complexity
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Clearly, molecular complexity was a precondition for biogenesis. Contiguous molecular structures are monkey bars for electrons that provide the stream of energy requi...
Genomism and the Nature Trail
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As genes move into the center of a hypothesis one needs an "ism" to refer to the background of ideas that make up the new model. Thus, as the term Darwinism...
The Frame for New Hypotheses of Evolution
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How does one present any new idea, which is in principle impossible to proof? Hypotheses are self-limiting and an old paradigm of evolution will fall victim to its er...
Life in a Tenuous Universe
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The question is, do we live independent of the shape of our universe, or are we an intimate partner as well as a beneficiary of its peculiar structure and its awesome...
