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A Thermodynamics Theory of the Origins of Life
New submitter SpankiMonki writes "Natalie Wolchover at Quanta Magazine has written an article about how Jeremy England, a MIT professor, may have found a theory of the origin of life grounded in physics. In a paper published last August by The Journal of Chemical Physics, England describes his theory, the 'Statistical physics of self-replication.' Wolchover writes, 'England['s]...formula...indicates that when a group of atoms is driven by an external source of energy (like the sun or chemical fuel) and surrounded by a heat bath (like the ocean or atmosphere), it will often gradually restructure itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy. This could mean that under certain conditions, matter inexorably acquires the key physical attribute associated with life.' England says his ideas pose no threat to Darwinian evolution: 'On the contrary, I am just saying that from the perspective of the physics, you might call Darwinian evolution a special case of a more general phenomenon.'"
We have Mercury and Venus as counter-examples. Why aren't they teeming with even more life.
I mean, I like the neat simplicity of the idea, but the "habitable zone + Miller Urey" is a more plausible theory.
Obviously this does not threaten the evolution in any way, why would it? Why is that sentence in there in the first place?
Evolution of species vs. how physical structures may create patterns that allow it to maintain lowest energy state..... I don't understand the confusion of ideas that may lead somebody to believe there is some conflict there in the first place.
You can't handle the truth.
This is really cool, and rather natural. Why would biological evolution be so special?
I bet, that in future research, we can find many other conditions, that, under the right circumstances and enoguh time, also behaves like an evolutionary system.
Can anyone with more info on this tell me how this earlier paper is different - arxiv.org/abs/0907.0042
“You start with a random clump of atoms, and if you shine light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get a plant,” England said.
In other words....
“You start with a random clump of atoms, and if a SUPREME BEING shines his light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get a plant,” England said.
There's a pretty good theory of the origin of life happening because of quantum physics, in the book, Quantum Evolution. It makes a lot more sense to me than this.
Can't comment on that paper but if this subject interest you check out this highly readable paper on the evolution of symmetry in biological molecules.
http://www.pnas.org/content/ea...
Because thermodynamics is all about statistics.
This means that even if life-formation goes against the laws of thermodynamics, it still is possible, however remote the probability.
This theory, may, however, be useful in predicting the probability of life forming under certain circumstances.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Looking at this macroscopically:
Stars kick out elements and supply enegy which creates compounds. Then life forms just as a method for reducing the enegy captured from the sun and stored in compounds back into lower energy things.
We are the entropic process in action.
Example:
Without us there would be massive amounts of stored enegy in the form of hydrocarbons. We are doing are part in the chain of things by releasing that back as thermal energy.
This even explains the evolution of intelligence as being more efficient at energy consumption.
Better start rewriting some chapters in those Texas physics textbooks then...
Physicists sometimes have it easy. This kind of thing is akin that old joke about treating a cow like a sphere.
Look with the chemical origin of life, that it was governed by physics is not in debate.
What matters are the details, what came first; RNA world, life on a metallic surface, or some thing else?
I have this to toss at so-called astrobiologists who claim that life is spontaneous and easy.
If it is so easy why is there only one kind of life -- 20 amino acids, 4 DNA/RNA bases? To a bio organic chemist the "selection" of this chemical code is arbitrary. Why do we not live in an ecosystem with a shadow "alternative" biosphere? After all life existed for 3 billion years on this planet before even becoming multi-cellular. Plenty of time for chemical weirdos to develop a four base genetic code templating for D chirality beta amino acid chains with side chains made of silicon.
Step off physicists, this field belongs to chemists.
In other words, evolution can be considered how we are here whereas thermodynamics can be considered a theory of why we are here. (Paraphrasing religious/scientific dualists)
It's a bit hard to take a summary about a complex physics paper seriously, when the submitter goes by the name SpankiMonki...
Whenever I hear about a physicist who explains a problem from outside his area of expertise with a few simple equations, I think about this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon: http://www.smbc-comics.com/com...
"England says his ideas pose no threat to Darwinian evolution."
Really? This had to be stated?
* Why would this have anything to do with Darwin's theory of evolution? Evolutionary theory is pointedly silent on the origins of life, nor does it depend on a thermodynamic explanation of speciation.
* Why would the article, or England for that matter, feel the need to explicitly state this?
[opinion] I feel like the scientific community has so rabid about avoiding anything resembling creationism that they have to reassure themselves when new ideas come up, even if the ideas are no threat to their core beliefs. [/opinion]
It's disappointing and makes it hard to take anything this guy says seriously, regardless of how reasonable or far fetched his formula is.
So, technically, the meaning of life is to dissipate energy?
Sounds like we do that pretty effectively. We seem to be instinctively driven to consume as much energy as possible in the most efficient way possible.
England says his ideas pose no threat to Darwinian evolution
They shouldn't. After all, that's the way God planned it. That's the way God wants it to be.
In the Journal of Chemical Physics, England describes YOU!
"Place me in the company of those who seek Truth, but deliver me from those who believe to have found it."
The paper has nothing to do with "the origin of life". We know that life exists, so proving that it can arise tells us nothing that we don't already know.
What we need to know is how fast it can arise and how likely it is.
Isn't this what Terrence Deacon has been saying for a while now?
It's not a theory, it's a hypothesis.
Personally, I think there must be some form of self-organization at work. The problem with Darwinian evolution is that it is based on selection of attributes that randomly arise over time. As a theory to explain the system-of-systems we see all around us, that is an awfully thin basis. One has to presume that merely by chance some beneficial attribute arises that just happens to be useful in surviving some random environmental chance. You start adding up all the chances of chances, and pretty soon life looks literally impossible.
But what if there is some undiscovered mechanism of self-organization that is self-directing the adaptation of life? Something inherent in the nature of the structure of matter itself. Why DO plants all grow towards the sun? Maybe it's not because it has anything to do with reproduction, but because that's what the stuff that plants are made of self-organize to do, naturally.
Anyway, just a thought.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
There are plenty of energy-dissipating processes that never seem to evolve. Clouds influence the creation of new clouds, whorls in a stream influence the creation of more whorls in water, but clouds and whorls today aren't any different from what they were billions of years ago.
"At the heart of England’s idea is the second law of thermodynamics, also known as the law of increasing entropy or the “arrow of time.”"
This is great, now somebody can easily go and model the economy thermodynamically. After all this should be a much simpler system.
Then again thinking about the second law feels like you can never come out ahead, introducing this concept to economics would be fatal to certain parts of the finance industry.
Je me souviens.
Plants grow towards the sun because they need sunlight for energy. And evolution is considerably more complex than just "random useful traits".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
. . . but it sounds like the cart's being put in front of the horse here.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
And dropping a probe in the Sahara for an hour would determine there is no life on Earth either.
We know next to nothing about venus. That data- rather than enlighten us, merely highlights how little we know.
The problem with Darwinian evolution is that it is based on selection of attributes that randomly arise over time. As a theory to explain the system-of-systems we see all around us, that is an awfully thin basis. One has to presume that merely by chance some beneficial attribute arises that just happens to be useful in surviving some random environmental chance
Yet we see that happening around us all the time, almost nothing but!
Let's make up some examples:
Say you have an organism, let's say ribosomes. We will call this little puddle of ribosomes "Group A"
Now, say one of those poor little ribosomes wanders too far into the badlands, and suddenly there are an extra 1000 atoms attached chemically to its side!
1000 atoms is pretty damn small, despite the size of the ribosome itself. A spec of dust too small to see is a mountain by comparison!
Well fortunately for our little ribosome this extra blob attached to it doesn't impede what it loves to do most, which is nom nom up amino acids and crap out a long chain of peptides.
(Apologies for the visuals there)
But being different, let's call this ribosome "Group B"
Now the differences between A and B are minor. Nothing more than chemistry and molecular bonding that we have known about for a hundred plus years now. There is not much about this "random" occourance that would be too unbelievable. We observe similar actions, adamantly on a larger scale, happening all the time.
One could argue that the ribosomes without this attachment are faster at moving and reorienting themselves, but consist of less atoms as a whole.
Perhaps also the ribosomes with this attachment have movement difficulties of some sort, but have more "bulk" around them.
Both are advantages and disadvantages. As most things in life, it is rarely one without the other.
This too is not difficult to understand nor too "random" that it can't happen, as we have observed similar happenings as well.
Now toss our friends into various environments and see what happens.
If the environment is such that faster speed and quicker orientation for an escape from a predator was the case, I would imagine Group A would have the advantage, while Group B would be at a disadvantage.
If it was another environment where the very liquids our friends were in are say more abrasive than water. Perhaps that extra atomic "bulk" would allow them to live longer while doing their thing.
This would make Group B at the advantage of Group A.
Are either of those environments "too wild" to exist in our imaginations? In the real world?
Both seem pretty common in nature to me.
Yet in one circumstance a specific group will do better and likely survive longer on average than the other, and a totally different set of circumstances would result in the reverse.
On earth we see plenty of different environments all over in different places, in fact all existing at the same time!
This is all evolution really is, and all the theory states is likely to be the outcome.
I don't see any of the above which is too crazy to be possible, as we have observed all of it already so know they exist.
seriously ? Add a few billion years of chance and yes, you will have complex structures that can survive in their environment.
Wrote bout this in a book called "What is Life?"
as in: Life is nature's solution to the second law (of thermodynamics)
Why do we keep the poor guy? He's had a great insight.
Now, let's get all scientific on his ass. Get a bottle, fill it with the right and ...
MAKE SOME LIFE!
A few billion years is nowhere near sufficient.
A billion billion years wouldn't be sufficient, giving the complexity of life.
That's why England's ideas are so intriguing: they propose a physical mechanism that is not entirely dependent on chance.
In the end, it's all physics.
Statistical mechanics is based on chance. but is about deriving properties that have effectively zero chance of not happening if you have a large enough system. It is basically in this case giving a quantitative confirmation of what was said by the person you are replying to, that given time, those chances accumulate to the point it becomes quite likely.
Why does the kind of diversity you argue is lacking mean that a potential in a system under certain conditions cannot converge to form the basis of life?
All galaxies have the basic properties of being swirly and full of stars... sure there's slight variations on that but that is basically the essence of them... a huge system with massive potential evolved and converged to form structures with those specific properties.
I don't think the problem is that the the paper is looking at this from the perspective of physics, but more that you are looking at it from the perspective of biological chemistry alone... Looking at chemistry alone everything looks very specific and unique before even delving into biology.
"key physical attribute associated with life" = silly and deceptive. The KEY attribute of life is complexity, not water nor energy. And you can't fake complexity--you have an intelligence putting that into the system or you have random chaos. Deal with it.
Cranky educator.
With enough blocks this could conceivably happen...