I have looked at the paper you mentioned and I confess I cannot keep a straight face, so I will not give a detailed response, except to say that your naïve outlook is extraordinary - if you wish to be better informed on the subject, the references I gave you are a good start; Davis is extremely interested in this area and he (and others) have provided reasonable reviews (if you can access the scientific literature you should read such papers) that are in keeping with your outlook. You will eventually see that science has not provided any breakthroughs in understanding the origin of life at any point in time.
GJDS, may we look forward to a letter to the editors of PNAS from you? I trust you read the actual papers and not the press release.
If science has not provided any breakthroughs as you say, what is your explanation for the fact that peptidyl transferase is a ribozyme?
[quote=“Eddie, post:4, topic:2630”]
I’ll answer that question when you answer the question I asked you first, i.e., what you think about the arguments of Stephen Meyer in Signature in the Cell.[/quote]
The thread title is about new research (Meyer’s never even done old research), not recycled arguments, Eddie. I think that anyone who doesn’t know that peptidyl transferase (the enzyme in the ribosome that links amino acids into proteins) is the most famous ribozyme known to man doesn’t have an opinion on OOL worth considering.
If you think that Meyer simply made a glaring error (which is just as shameful as not knowing), I’d like to know your design explanation for having a ribozyme assemble proteins instead of a protein. Maybe you should ask Meyer…
[quote]And I want an answer based on your own reading of Meyer, not on hearsay about Meyer picked up from others.
[/quote]Why should Patrick read Meyer’s outright misinformation and deceptively selective hearsay instead of papers from people who actually work in the field?
It already has.
Eddie, that’s ludicrous. I suspect that even you are aware that science doesn’t work that way.
The threshold for a Nobel is much lower than that. Even a big step supporting or disproving a hypothesis is enough. For example, we have the 2009 Nobel in Chemistry going to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Tom A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath for showing that the ribosome (at the centre of which is the enzyme peptidyl transferase) is a ribozyme, something that neither you nor anyone in the ID movement can explain.
The work was published with great fanfare in 2000. Yet the nonscientist you relentlessly tout as an OOL expert doesn’t seem to know about it, because in a book published in 2009, he wrote:
"“A protein within the ribosome known as a peptidyl transferase then catalyzes a polymerization (linking) reaction involving the two (tRNA-borne) amino acids.”
–Signature in the Cell, p. 128
The topic is ‘breakthrough in origin of life’ - perhaps you will provide your papers that contain such breakthroughs so that we can all know such breathtaking scientific advance(s) and glory in your accomplishments. Methinks you are too prone to play the ‘know-it-all critic’ of other people’s expertise and yet do not provide the vast publications of your work! 
GJDS,
Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but in this context YOU are the ‘know-it-all’ critic of the authors’ expertise, so you might want to take a look at the beam in your eye.
I’ll ask again: if science has “not provided any breakthroughs” as you say, what is your explanation for the fact that peptidyl transferase is a ribozyme? You are chemist, are you not? How was that discovery not a breakthrough?
Did you read the PNAS papers before issuing your ‘know-it-all’ critical judgement? Have you provided the examples of work that you demand from others?
Tom Steitz quoted in an HHMI press release from 2000 titled “High-Resolution Image Illuminates Catalytic Engine of the Ribosome–The Ribosome is a Ribozyme”:
[quote]“Since (HHMI President) Thomas Cech had shown that RNA could have catalytic activity, we had suspected that the 50S subunit was basically a ribozyme,” said Steitz. "However, there was no proof. Nobody had been able to show that the RNA by itself showed catalytic properties in the absence of the protein. Now we can see that part of the reason is probably the nature of these proteins that are holding the ribosome together.
“Our structure shows that these proteins are deeply embedded in the RNA and are essential for its folding. And it shows unambiguously that the ribosome is a ribozyme because we can see where the substrate binds and there’s no protein atom near enough to that site to produce any catalytic activity.”[/quote]
Stephen Meyer, nine years later:
How can Meyer be an authority if he doesn’t know that peptidyl transferase is a ribozyme?
Stephen Meyer, in the same book:
This is spectacularly false. The RNA-first model predicts that some ribozymes were so important that they could not be replaced. Evolution is stuck in a way that would not cause a problem for an intelligent designer.
Here are the predictions from the RNA World hypothesis from 1986 (Gilbert, The RNA World, Nature 319:618):
So, Eddie, why should we trust anything Meyer says about the RNA World hypothesis if he won’t even describe the hypothesis and its predictions accurately, much less the fulfilment of one of those predictions by Tom Steitz, who labored in such obscurity that he won a Nobel Prize?
[quote=“Eddie, post:86, topic:2555”]
I’m well aware of the idea of possible sub-cellular antecedents to the first cell.[/quote]
There you go again. You are relentless in your misrepresentation. Which people who actually work in the field hypothesize that there was “a first cell” again? You haven’t come up with one. This is just your straw man because you can’t deal with the actual science. Only populations can evolve. The idea that there was any quantum leap from an entity all would regard as noncellular to “a first cell” is preposterous, which IMO is precisely why you misattribute it to others.
But are they discussed honestly? You appear to be tacitly admitting that you haven’t bothered to familiarize yourself with the views of those who actually work in the field.
We’re not talking about design yet. We’re working on relieving you of the false notion that there was ever anything we’d agree was “the very first cell.”
That’s because you repeatedly are “making things up.” These things are important in a coherent understanding of evolutionary theory, something you fight against.
Here and there? No, Eddie, attributing “the very first cell” to those who actually work in the field is not a mere overstatement. It’s pure falsehood. Let’s review your misrepresentation:
[quote]But in addition, doesn’t “the reasoning part of your brain” cause you to wonder how the very first cell could have been assembled? Doesn’t “reason” raise the question whether its assembly might have required intelligent design?[/quote]Without the straw man, you have no argument. I have never wondered “how the very first cell could have been assembled,” because the idea of a “very first cell” is completely unmoored from reality. And “here and there”? How many times did you repeat it on this page?
Then you stacked on your claim that Patrick was wrong about cellularization is viewed by those in the field. Another falsehood, not an overstatement.
Then you concocted “the scientists who actually work in the the field of trying to find a naturalistic origin of life on earth, i.e., the biologists, biochemists, geochemists etc., assert exactly the opposite of what you say here.”
That’s an additional false claim stacked on the first two. It’s not a mere overstatement since you can’t even show that a single scientist who actually works in the field agrees with you and not Patrick.
[quote] – and not on the more important theoretical issue that I’m raising.
[/quote]The theoretical issue that you’re pretending to raise, it seems to me. The real issue is that you’re not raising any issues with real evolutionary theory–you relentlessly pretend that evolution happens to single entities and not populations. Understanding that distinction is the key to understanding evolution, and it appears to me that your goal in misrepresenting evolution is to prevent others from reaching that basic understanding. There aren’t issues more important than that in the context of the mission of Biologos.
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On the unlikely chance that you can focus on the point of this exchange with Patrick, it was to show a difference between speculative research and that which provides a breakthrough on the origins of life - and it relates to the source provided by Patrick. I do not know why you insert yourself in this way, but perhaps if you take a deep breath and pause, you may realise that I have suggested further reading by workers in this field, who, in various ways, seem to agree that this area is speculative. I also add a quote from Patrick’s source to illustrate the speculative nature of this area:
"Wolfenden and Carter’s findings imply that the relationships between tRNA and the physical properties of the amino acids—their sizes and polarities—were crucial during the Earth’s primordial era.
In light of Carter’s previous work with very small active cores of tRNA synthetases called Urzymes, it now seems likely that selection by size preceded selection according to polarity. This ordered selection meant that the earliest proteins did not necessarily fold into unique shapes, and that their unique structures evolved later"
Your aggressive response indicates you know better, and so I have asked you to provide your research results on any breakthroughs you have made on origins of life - I have made no such claims, nor indicated that I work is in this area. So, as the saying goes, show me your output, or show some civility by stopping your pointless comments.
On matters such as polarity of molecules such as amino-acids, and the behaviour of hydrophilic molecules in water or water/oil mixtures, this area is well understood by chemists, so relax, there is no debate. Workers have all understood however, that optically pure amino acids cannot be produced under the conditions envisaged by experiments such as the ones Patrick refers to. Again, if you know better, say so - if not, do not say anything 
,
Really? What is comical about the paper? I am not in the bio- chemical origins field so I really don’t know what is cutting edge research. But your comments does remind me of a paper written in 1965 by two people who lived in my town. It was only one page long, it wasn’t very technically hard to understand. Here it is:
btw, they got the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978 for this work which was only this one page paper based on 9 months of measurements with an old, no longer in use horn antenna.
I will be happy to wait for the awarding of the next Nobel Prize from work that you refer to, on the origins of life, Patrick - I think we have made sufficient remarks on this matter - clearly we (and others) have a different view on the usual understanding amongst scientists of what is speculative and what is a genuine breakthrough.
I don’t think we have. No body discussed one iota on the merits of the paper. Maybe I am grossly over stating the significance of this work. But didn’t it show one possible way that inanimate readily available amino acids attached themselves to one end of a -tRNA molecule by size and on the other end by charge polarity. Didn’t this make a two step improbable process into a one step probable process? The step from going to a soup of amino acids to making more complex proteins moderated by t-RNA? A purely natural process? Is there any ID anywhere in this process?
Can you please send me Meyer’s book and I will read it. Or better yet, just send me those parts that you feel proves your point that you are making.
Eddie,
What I am saying, is that the world we live in, it is dangerous to both of us to have such discussions in Cyberspace.