From Newsgroup: talk.origins

William Bains, PhD (astrobiologist):

"I am grateful to Janusz Petkowski and Sukrit Ranjan, for helpful and constructive comments on earlier versions of this diatribe, to David
Deamer for detailed commentary that put me right on a few points, and to
Bruce Damer for similarly insightful input."

"Of course OOL chemists understand that 99% pure reagents were not
available at OOL. The hope is that by exploring what happens in rCLcleanrCY chemistry you can gain insight into messier chemistry, and so edge
towards more realistic scenarios. Indeed, there is a growing body of
work on rCLmessy chemistryrCYrCodoing lab chemistry with mixtures and accepting impure products as valid outputs [45,46]. Most researchers,
even some working on such chemical schemes, understand that lab
chemistry is only a tiny part of the whole problem. But that is not the primary issue. It is a tiny part solved in an unrealistic way."

"In my view, almost all the OOL chemistry that I see is Toy Domain
chemistry. It is making single types of biochemicals in a controlled laboratory setting using pure chemicals that might, just might, have
been present in trace amounts in a complex mixture of thousands of other chemicals at OOL, under conditions that might have existed and might
have persisted long enough, and then stopping the reaction at exactly
the right time to maximize the yield of what you want (See [44],
especially Chapter 5). It neglects that many of the postulated starting materials are themselves unstable. It neglects that they will react with
other chemicals present. It neglects that the intermediates will all
react with each other, and with the products."

"And this does not even start to address chirality. And it also does not address that pernicious little word rCLfunctionrCY."

"To illustrate, let us accept that organic chemicals accumulate in
subaerial ponds and that lamellae would form and that cycles of
dehydration would happen and that they would drive dehydration
chemistry. What actually would you form if you did not start from pure chemicals?"

"The research does tell us something about chemistry. But it is not
something that has much relevance to OOL, because if you carry out lab
organic chemistry on anything approaching a plausible pre-biotic aqueous organic soup you never get life. You get tar. Even if you do it in
vesicles."

"And indeed there has been a major advance in the use of the term rCLmajor advancerCY in the OOL literature; 75% of all papers using the phrase
rCLmajor advancerCY in the context of origin of life listed in Google
Scholar were published after 2011. But what many such advances are is a
new scenariorConew location, new suggested set of pure reagents to react,
a new chain of specific reactions that have be demonstrated, one at a
time, in the lab. They are all new Toy Domains. Deamer admits a lot of
this."

"There is also a lot of excitement about rCLsystems chemistryrCY and rCLautocatalyticrCY systems, catalysed mainly by Stuart Kauffman [58]rCa Even within the biochemical networks of established life, random chemistry
occurs and degrades the components of metabolism (e.g., the reaction of
amines with sugars, amino acid side-chains with each other etc. [61]).
Any sufficiently complex set of reactive and catalytic molecules is, in
fact, BennerrCOs tar. We need something more."

"Again, the term rCyProtocellrCO is used to mean any liposome-like membrane encapsulating other molecules. In my opinion, a vesicle encapsulating
random organic molecules is almost as far from life as the bulk
rCLprebiotic souprCY from which it was made. To draw rCLProtocells raA ProgenoterCY in a diagram skips over everything about how that transition happens, i.e., how life originates!"

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/10/2/18

_______


Deamer and Damer criticise their own field of OoL (consistent with James
Tour, of all people). Yet despite their clear-eyed assessment, Deamer
himself is subject to this critique from a sympathetic and respected
peer. This is where OoL is actually at.

"Whoa-hoh-oh, the gaps are gettin' bigger
Yeah-eah, mmm they're gettin' bigger"

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From Newsgroup: talk.origins

On 4/15/2026 12:33 AM, MarkE wrote:

William Bains, PhD (astrobiologist):

"I am grateful to Janusz Petkowski and Sukrit Ranjan, for helpful and constructive comments on earlier versions of this diatribe, to David
Deamer for detailed commentary that put me right on a few points, and to Bruce Damer for similarly insightful input."

"Of course OOL chemists understand that 99% pure reagents were not
available at OOL. The hope is that by exploring what happens in rCLcleanrCY chemistry you can gain insight into messier chemistry, and so edge
towards more realistic scenarios. Indeed, there is a growing body of
work on rCLmessy chemistryrCYrCodoing lab chemistry with mixtures and accepting impure products as valid outputs [45,46]. Most researchers,
even some working on such chemical schemes, understand that lab
chemistry is only a tiny part of the whole problem. But that is not the primary issue. It is a tiny part solved in an unrealistic way."

"In my view, almost all the OOL chemistry that I see is Toy Domain chemistry. It is making single types of biochemicals in a controlled laboratory setting using pure chemicals that might, just might, have
been present in trace amounts in a complex mixture of thousands of other chemicals at OOL, under conditions that might have existed and might
have persisted long enough, and then stopping the reaction at exactly
the right time to maximize the yield of what you want (See [44],
especially Chapter 5). It neglects that many of the postulated starting materials are themselves unstable. It neglects that they will react with other chemicals present. It neglects that the intermediates will all
react with each other, and with the products."

"And this does not even start to address chirality. And it also does not address that pernicious little word rCLfunctionrCY."

"To illustrate, let us accept that organic chemicals accumulate in
subaerial ponds and that lamellae would form and that cycles of
dehydration would happen and that they would drive dehydration
chemistry. What actually would you form if you did not start from pure chemicals?"

"The research does tell us something about chemistry. But it is not something that has much relevance to OOL, because if you carry out lab organic chemistry on anything approaching a plausible pre-biotic aqueous organic soup you never get life. You get tar. Even if you do it in vesicles."

"And indeed there has been a major advance in the use of the term rCLmajor advancerCY in the OOL literature; 75% of all papers using the phrase rCLmajor advancerCY in the context of origin of life listed in Google Scholar were published after 2011. But what many such advances are is a
new scenariorConew location, new suggested set of pure reagents to react,
a new chain of specific reactions that have be demonstrated, one at a
time, in the lab. They are all new Toy Domains. Deamer admits a lot of this."

"There is also a lot of excitement about rCLsystems chemistryrCY and rCLautocatalyticrCY systems, catalysed mainly by Stuart Kauffman [58]rCa Even
within the biochemical networks of established life, random chemistry
occurs and degrades the components of metabolism (e.g., the reaction of amines with sugars, amino acid side-chains with each other etc. [61]).
Any sufficiently complex set of reactive and catalytic molecules is, in fact, BennerrCOs tar. We need something more."

"Again, the term rCyProtocellrCO is used to mean any liposome-like membrane encapsulating other molecules. In my opinion, a vesicle encapsulating
random organic molecules is almost as far from life as the bulk
rCLprebiotic souprCY from which it was made. To draw rCLProtocells raA ProgenoterCY in a diagram skips over everything about how that transition happens, i.e., how life originates!"

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/10/2/18

_______

Deamer and Damer criticise their own field of OoL (consistent with James Tour, of all people). Yet despite their clear-eyed assessment, Deamer himself is subject to this critique from a sympathetic and respected
peer. This is where OoL is actually at.

"Whoa-hoh-oh, the gaps are gettin' bigger
-aYeah-eah, mmm they're gettin' bigger"

What a nut job. Whoa-hoh-oh says a person so deeply in denial that he
has to lie to himself that any of this matters to his Biblical beliefs.
No matter how the gap is filled you lose. You ran from that reality,
but eventually decided that dishonesty was the best policy, and
wallowing in denial is all that you can do.

As you have been told the origin of life junk is far from top flight
science and the guys involved in it, like Bains, are likely not the
sharpest tools in the shed. All this doesn't matter because the origin
of life on earth was not Biblical. Your own analysis told you that, so
grow up and deal with reality instead of continue to wallow in denial.
Reality is not going to change. We do not even think that we can ever
fill the gap. All that the origin of life guys can hope to figure out
is the most likely means that life arose on this planet. That obviously
does not have to be the way that it actually happened.

There is absolutely no point in your continued gap denial when you do
not want the gaps filled by anything. Just the existence of the gaps
kills your Biblical beliefs. You have to deal honestly with those
incorrect Biblical beliefs before you can deal honestly with reality.
Tour is likely in the same boat, and can't deal with the fact that the
gap means that his Biblical beliefs are wrong. If he is an
anti-evolution Biblical creationists like you and just supports the ID
scam for the denial, he is lying to himself just like you are, so why
keep putting him up as some creationist example. His denial is just as
bogus as yours. How can you respect anyone like that? You obviously
want the guy to lie to you about reality, but you likely should not
respect the guy if he is just wallowing in denial like yourself.

Just for your information, the origin of life on earth likely required
messy chemistry with all the "contaminants" and extraneous molecules
around. No one knows what the first self replicators were made of. Not
only that but the initial self replicators likely needed to be
inaccurate replicators dealing with a mixture of chemicals in the
environment in order to create similar but different enough self
replicators that a wide range of catalytic activity could evolve and be
tested in order to find a winner. Any replicator that only replicated
exact copies of itself would likely not contribute to the origin of life
on earth. We are likely dealing with simple catalytic molecules that
make molecular bonds that would create something like themselves, but
they could also make other types of molecular bonds that could make
other molecules. Eventually catalysis would become specific enough so
that the chirality issue (that likely was never an issue) is solved
because only one chiral form would be used by the enzyme to self
replicate. D-glucose is used by the cell because pretty much all the
metabolic enzymes that deal with glucose either make only a D-glucose
product or need to use D-glucose to produce their product or products. D-glucose was chosen by the first catalytic molecule that required that
chiral form to do whatever it did. Enzymes that made D-glucose or used D-glucose would be selected for in order to work with what was already working. It would be a mess if some enzyme evolved to make L-glucose
when all the enzymes that used glucose could only use the D form (I just
asked Google and Google claims that cellular metabolism only makes
D-glucose and that L-glucose is only produced by rare mistakes).
Really, look it up life has evolved pathways that, pretty much, only
make D-glucose, likely because a lot of the enzymes that use glucose can
only work with the D form. L-amino acids are used to make nucleotides. Nucleotides likely needed to be made before the genetic code evolved to
use L-amino acids to make proteins. I have never considered chirality
to be an issue. It tells you something about the current origin of life researchers when they can't seem to deal with the reality that exists.
Life depends on catalytic activity. Enzymes usually only work with one
chiral form. The first replicable enzymes would have likely chosen the chirality of the molecules that were used in the reaction. Enzymes can
evolve to use either form, but the enzyme that would be selected for
would be the enzyme that used the chiral form that was already being
used by other enzymes. Everything that subsequently evolved would need
to work within what was already working.

Ron Okimoto

--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: talk.origins

On 4/15/2026 9:37 AM, RonO wrote:

On 4/15/2026 12:33 AM, MarkE wrote:

William Bains, PhD (astrobiologist):

"I am grateful to Janusz Petkowski and Sukrit Ranjan, for helpful and
constructive comments on earlier versions of this diatribe, to David
Deamer for detailed commentary that put me right on a few points, and
to Bruce Damer for similarly insightful input."

"Of course OOL chemists understand that 99% pure reagents were not
available at OOL. The hope is that by exploring what happens in
rCLcleanrCY chemistry you can gain insight into messier chemistry, and so >> edge towards more realistic scenarios. Indeed, there is a growing body
of work on rCLmessy chemistryrCYrCodoing lab chemistry with mixtures and
accepting impure products as valid outputs [45,46]. Most researchers,
even some working on such chemical schemes, understand that lab
chemistry is only a tiny part of the whole problem. But that is not
the primary issue. It is a tiny part solved in an unrealistic way."

"In my view, almost all the OOL chemistry that I see is Toy Domain
chemistry. It is making single types of biochemicals in a controlled
laboratory setting using pure chemicals that might, just might, have
been present in trace amounts in a complex mixture of thousands of
other chemicals at OOL, under conditions that might have existed and
might have persisted long enough, and then stopping the reaction at
exactly the right time to maximize the yield of what you want (See
[44], especially Chapter 5). It neglects that many of the postulated
starting materials are themselves unstable. It neglects that they will
react with other chemicals present. It neglects that the intermediates
will all react with each other, and with the products."

"And this does not even start to address chirality. And it also does
not address that pernicious little word rCLfunctionrCY."

"To illustrate, let us accept that organic chemicals accumulate in
subaerial ponds and that lamellae would form and that cycles of
dehydration would happen and that they would drive dehydration
chemistry. What actually would you form if you did not start from pure
chemicals?"

"The research does tell us something about chemistry. But it is not
something that has much relevance to OOL, because if you carry out lab
organic chemistry on anything approaching a plausible pre-biotic
aqueous organic soup you never get life. You get tar. Even if you do
it in vesicles."

"And indeed there has been a major advance in the use of the term
rCLmajor advancerCY in the OOL literature; 75% of all papers using the
phrase rCLmajor advancerCY in the context of origin of life listed in
Google Scholar were published after 2011. But what many such advances
are is a new scenariorConew location, new suggested set of pure reagents
to react, a new chain of specific reactions that have be demonstrated,
one at a time, in the lab. They are all new Toy Domains. Deamer admits
a lot of this."

"There is also a lot of excitement about rCLsystems chemistryrCY and
rCLautocatalyticrCY systems, catalysed mainly by Stuart Kauffman [58]rCa
Even within the biochemical networks of established life, random
chemistry occurs and degrades the components of metabolism (e.g., the
reaction of amines with sugars, amino acid side-chains with each other
etc. [61]). Any sufficiently complex set of reactive and catalytic
molecules is, in fact, BennerrCOs tar. We need something more."

"Again, the term rCyProtocellrCO is used to mean any liposome-like
membrane encapsulating other molecules. In my opinion, a vesicle
encapsulating random organic molecules is almost as far from life as
the bulk rCLprebiotic souprCY from which it was made. To draw rCLProtocells >> raA ProgenoterCY in a diagram skips over everything about how that
transition happens, i.e., how life originates!"

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/10/2/18

_______


Deamer and Damer criticise their own field of OoL (consistent with
James Tour, of all people). Yet despite their clear-eyed assessment,
Deamer himself is subject to this critique from a sympathetic and
respected peer. This is where OoL is actually at.

"Whoa-hoh-oh, the gaps are gettin' bigger
-a-aYeah-eah, mmm they're gettin' bigger"

What a nut job.-a Whoa-hoh-oh says a person so deeply in denial that he
has to lie to himself that any of this matters to his Biblical beliefs.
No matter how the gap is filled you lose.-a You ran from that reality,
but eventually decided that dishonesty was the best policy, and
wallowing in denial is all that you can do.

As you have been told the origin of life junk is far from top flight
science and the guys involved in it, like Bains, are likely not the
sharpest tools in the shed.-a All this doesn't matter because the origin
of life on earth was not Biblical.-a Your own analysis told you that, so grow up and deal with reality instead of continue to wallow in denial. Reality is not going to change.-a We do not even think that we can ever
fill the gap.-a All that the origin of life guys can hope to figure out
is the most likely means that life arose on this planet.-a That obviously does not have to be the way that it actually happened.

There is absolutely no point in your continued gap denial when you do
not want the gaps filled by anything.-a Just the existence of the gaps
kills your Biblical beliefs.-a You have to deal honestly with those incorrect Biblical beliefs before you can deal honestly with reality.
Tour is likely in the same boat, and can't deal with the fact that the
gap means that his Biblical beliefs are wrong.-a If he is an anti-
evolution Biblical creationists like you and just supports the ID scam
for the denial, he is lying to himself just like you are, so why keep putting him up as some creationist example.-a His denial is just as bogus
as yours.-a How can you respect anyone like that?-a You obviously want the guy to lie to you about reality, but you likely should not respect the
guy if he is just wallowing in denial like yourself.

Just for your information, the origin of life on earth likely required
messy chemistry with all the "contaminants" and extraneous molecules around.-a No one knows what the first self replicators were made of.-a Not only that but the initial self replicators likely needed to be
inaccurate replicators dealing with a mixture of chemicals in the environment in order to create similar but different enough self
replicators that a wide range of catalytic activity could evolve and be tested in order to find a winner.-a Any replicator that only replicated exact copies of itself would likely not contribute to the origin of life
on earth.-a We are likely dealing with simple catalytic molecules that
make molecular bonds that would create something like themselves, but
they could also make other types of molecular bonds that could make
other molecules.-a Eventually catalysis would become specific enough so
that the chirality issue (that likely was never an issue) is solved
because only one chiral form would be used by the enzyme to self
replicate. D-glucose is used by the cell because pretty much all the metabolic enzymes that deal with glucose either make only a D-glucose product or need to use D-glucose to produce their product or products. D-glucose was chosen by the first catalytic molecule that required that chiral form to do whatever it did.-a Enzymes that made D-glucose or used D-glucose would be selected for in order to work with what was already working.-a It would be a mess if some enzyme evolved to make L-glucose
when all the enzymes that used glucose could only use the D form (I just asked Google and Google claims that cellular metabolism only makes D- glucose and that L-glucose is only produced by rare mistakes). Really,
look it up life has evolved pathways that, pretty much, only make D- glucose, likely because a lot of the enzymes that use glucose can only
work with the D form.-a L-amino acids are used to make nucleotides. Nucleotides likely needed to be made before the genetic code evolved to
use L-amino acids to make proteins.-a I have never considered chirality
to be an issue.-a It tells you something about the current origin of life researchers when they can't seem to deal with the reality that exists.
Life depends on catalytic activity.-a Enzymes usually only work with one chiral form.-a The first replicable enzymes would have likely chosen the chirality of the molecules that were used in the reaction.-a Enzymes can evolve to use either form, but the enzyme that would be selected for
would be the enzyme that used the chiral form that was already being
used by other enzymes.-a Everything that subsequently evolved would need
to work within what was already working.

Ron Okimoto

I just asked Google what the ratio of D and L-glucose was was if it were synthesized without enzyme catalysis. Google claims that if glucose is
made by the formose reaction, without enzymes, that a 50:50 mix of D and L-glucose is created. Cells use enzymes to produce glucose and nearly
100% is D-glucose (Google claims that some low frequency errors are
made). The first highly successful replicator to use glucose for
structural or energy production would have set the chirality for the
enzymes that would fallow. Subsequent evolution would select for
enzymes that worked with what was already working. If an enzyme did not
use or make the right product it would fail and be selected against.

L amino acids were likely already being used to make nucleotides, so
protein production would be selected to use what was already being used
by the cell. I do not think that there was ever a problem with chirality.

Ron Okimoto

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