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Life may be the ultimate in planetary stress relief, a new theory claims.
The appearance of life on Earth seems to face so many obstacles — sourcing the right ingredients, for example, and arranging them into living things (while being bombarded by meteorites) — that scientists often feel forced to regard it as almost miraculous. Now two US researchers suggest that, on the contrary, it may have been inevitable.
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Posted by on November 14, 2006
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Morowitz and Smith’s proposal that life may have been forced into existence to alleviate a continuous build-up of free energy requires that the most primitive replicators at the origin of life can actually release a free energy stress. This, however, may not be the case. Owing to their low metabolic demands and inefficient replication it seems unlikely that primitive replicators can produce populations that absorb even a marginal fraction of the free energy in open thermodynamic systems. This seems instead to require ecosystems composed of more evolved organisms with higher energetic demands, suggesting that the abilities of biotic systems to absorb free energy is a consequences of the evolved state of the system, more than it is a consequence of it’s origin. Nevertheless, the complex organisms on Earth may be inevitable. Given the origin of self-replicating molecules in open thermodynamic systems with a continuous inflow of energy, recent theoretical studies suggest that major biological transitions evolve deterministically in the long run from a natural selection that is imposed by the energetic state of individual self-replicators and the density dependent competitive interactions between self-replicators in natural populations [Witting, 2002 (Theor. Pop. Biol: 61:171) & 2003 (J. theor. Biol. 225:389)].
Posted by: Lars Witting | November 15, 2006 01:38 AM
This is an interesting idea I had once come upon myself, that living energy processes(the energy processes of life) act as a necessary valve of the forces of universal energy balances. That life is a necessary compenment rather than a fluke-a natural part of things I believe to be the case. However in an extreme sense of this idea I do not think, as anyone wuld be inclined, that a line/divide can be created between the existance of matter, the chemical elements, the planents and structures of space, and life itself-as anything extra specially diffeent from the rest-an exact natural part of things inside and out, though on looking at energy balances appears to be very expensive that one asks how and why it exists. I do have an exact idea but it has so far been refused for print-out of scope-or most likely its' subject matter not perceived, and is not available.
http://www.marvinekirsh.com
http://www.authorsden.com/marvinelikirsh
Posted by: Marvin E. Kirsh | November 15, 2006 04:24 AM
Thats very interesting to know! But, if anythinh it only increases our questions regarding the origin of Life: is it possible to know, if life emerges on any other sunny, wet, rocky planet - will it take the same form(s) as it has on earth; the same evolutionary pathways? and ultimately, of course, does this give a different perspective to what human activities do to changing our planet Earth?
Posted by: Anupama | November 15, 2006 02:08 PM
We really are grasping at straws now, aren't we?
Posted by: Thomas P. Ehman | November 15, 2006 02:10 PM
I donot see how this theory explains the appearance of awareness in human beings. How human beings can think, practice introspection, discriminate feelings and put them into words.
How does this theory explain chemical substances becoming something that can feel, think?
Posted by: R. Green | November 15, 2006 05:12 PM
The idea that an earth with life is more stable than one without life is indeed striking. Perhaps there is analogy with a simple crystallization process, wherein the order of the crystals in more than compensated by the disorder produced in the solution. Once this step is carried out then
the mechanisms of evolution lead to further complexity, consciousness, etc.
Posted by: Bernard Chasan | November 15, 2006 07:16 PM
Interesting article, but just adding energy alone is ot sufficient to casue life to emerge. The are four componets to using energy to get life started. 1) there must be a souce of energy; 2) this must happen in an open system (the earth is an open system); 3) there must be a mechanism to capture and store the raw energy. Just adding energy into a system will do little to nothing; 4) there must be a mechanism to convert the raw energy into usable energy adn then put the energy to work. Items 3 and 4 are often left out of explanations. Where did these two very complex mechanims cme from?
In addition, most origin of life scenarios leave out the fact that all biological proteins contain 100% left-handed amino acids. However, the natural tendency is always to bond left and right-handed. ALl experiments done to date produce a near-even mixture of amino acids which is detrimental to life.
Then there is the problem of water. Water tends to decompose molecules, specifically amino acid bonds. This would mean that in order to get life started the evolution process would have to first assemble the membrane to protect all the molecules amino acids, DNA,...) from water, oxygen, and the UV rays from the sun.
Conclusion: It sounds like another just-so story
Posted by: Mike Riddle | November 15, 2006 07:55 PM
The theory is interesting, but the "news" writeup is awful. Since when do "scientists" think that the arisal of locally ordered systems is "puzzling" in view of the 2LoT? Only creationists find it puzzling. Also, Russell's notion about conditions being "just right" is not similar to, and in fact contradicts, Morowitz and Smith’s theory.
Posted by: Popper's ghost | November 16, 2006 01:25 PM
ok, this whole story is a bunch of... bologna. obviously we did NOT just spring up and live, nor did we evolve to this point of life...God made us!!!God made the heavens and the earth, all the animals and people too...He made us all with a pupose, so i don't believe in any of this...because i am a christian!!!
Posted by: Stephanie Aceves | November 16, 2006 02:27 PM
I look forward to the day when our educational system has advanced to the point where Ms. Aceves's comment would not only look satirical, but necessarily be satirical.
Posted by: Popper's ghost | November 16, 2006 02:38 PM
Hi All
Bad spelling Creationist objections aside I'm not sure how Morowitz and Smith hope that life can be seen as a consequence of geological stress release. The news write-up seems to lack a clear explanation of what they're proposing. BTW Morowitz has previously said, a few decades ago, that the thermodynamic state of living cells is unlikely to the tune of 10^10^10 to 1, or numbers to that effect. Clearly he must have good reasons for thinking that early energy flows in the Earth can bias organic chemistry strongly in the other direction.
Posted by: Adam James Crowl | November 18, 2006 10:18 PM
> relaxing the 'energy pressure' of the environment.
What on Earth (sorry 'bout the pun) does this mean? How does "energy pressure" create a need for _life_ to dissipate it? Why not just radiate off the energy, like the Sun does (and the present-day Earth does too, in the infra-red)? Sounds like gobbledigook.
Posted by: Mike Maxwell | November 20, 2006 05:49 PM
Suprisinly enough, researchers tend to inquire still deeper in the laws of thermodynamics when trying to justify a "lower energetic state" of life, with respect to our environment. Even more surprising is the non-existence of entropy (non-clausius) in this equation. The only pattern we see in the universe is that everything tends to a higher degenerancy state. Human beings are no exception. The body can be regarded as a complex crystal, entropically stable. (Schrodinger, 56). I hope it comes the day when brilliant researchers will come up with a marvelous information theory that will replace quantum theory in both rigurous planck/avogadro scale.
Posted by: Carlos-Andres Palma | November 20, 2006 07:07 PM
Every new idea at first seems outlandish or absurd (or offensive to Christians who can't spell!). Consider the reception Copernicus received—or how Einstein dismissed quantum mechanics with a rhetorical flourish about God not playing dice with the universe. While there are some difficulties with Morowitz and Smith's idea (and they acknowledge this) it is worth giving it a chance, and it is good to see responses that seek to do just that. A healthy skepticism does not necessarily have to express itself in the form of name calling and invective. Those who have nothing substantive to contribute to the discussion should restrain their misplaced outrage and hold their silence.
Posted by: Michael Mendis | November 20, 2006 09:04 PM
ISOTHERMAL HEAT ENGINES AT THE BEGINNING?
Lars Witting: "Given the origin of self-replicating molecules in open thermodynamic systems with a continuous inflow of energy..."
Initially this "continuous inflow of energy" may not have been actual. Conversion of environmental heat into work may be possible (and the first living creatures perhaps did use this source) but, due to the fact that heat has to flow from the surroundings to a heat engine that is at almost the same temperature (that is, the temperature gradient is insignificant), the process of work production is extremely slow and in this sense inefficient. Examples of isothermal heat engines can be found here (although the paper is not well written):
http://www.wbabin.net/valev/valev2.htm
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
Posted by: Pentcho Valev | December 8, 2006 01:22 PM
As an "energy reduction / release mechanism, is it possible that there are alternative paths to that which might give rise to life? In other words, life may not be an inevitable consequence of initial energy build up. If the proposed theory is correct for Earth it may not necessarily be extrapolated to other Earth-like planets even with a similar "macro environment" at some point in the planet's evolution. It is conceivable that the energy thresholds might be variable to the point where although life may be perhaps inevitable in theory micro attributes of other planetary systems never permit the life forming energy threshold to be reached. I am thinking in this context where although similar initial conditions might exist on different planets, with the progression of time the state of planetary systems might diverge where the energy is always constrained below the threshold.
Posted by: Andrew Ian Jeffrey | December 10, 2006 11:06 AM
Hi my names Jessica and im in grade 11 and just have a few questions about evolution. We touched on it in Bio this year but im still confused. Frist I dont understand how human beings could form from micro-organisms and if we all came from the same meteor then why did some turn into plants and monkeys and other into fish and people????? Thats it for now. Thanks
Posted by: Jessica Flynn | January 8, 2007 07:07 PM
CLAUSIUS DID NOT DISPROVE ISOTHERMAL HEAT ENGINES
In 1850 Rudolf Clausius introduced the second law of thermodynamics in the following way:
http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/Clausius.html "Ueber die bewegende Kraft der Warme":
"If we now suppose that there are two substances of which the one can produce more work than the other by the transfer of a given amount of heat, or, what comes to the same thing, needs to transfer less heat from A to B to produce a given quantity of work, we may use these two substances alternately by producing work with one of them in the above process. At the end of the operations both bodies are in their original condition; further, the work produced will have exactly counterbalanced the work done, and therefore, by our former principle, the quantity of heat can have neither increased nor diminished. The only change will occur in the distribution of the heat, since more heat will be transferred from B to A than from A to B, and so on the whole heat will be transferred from B to A. By repeating these two processes alternately it would be possible, without any expenditure of force or any other change, to transfer as much heat as we please from a cold to a hot body, and this is not in accord with the other relations of heat, since it always shows a tendency to equalize temperature differences and therefore to pass from hotter to colder bodies."
If Clausius had been honest, he would have mentioned unavoidable changes in the operator that carries out the process, e.g. in the following way:
If we now suppose that there are two substances of which the one can produce more work than the other by the transfer of a given amount of heat, or, what comes to the same thing, needs to transfer less heat from A to B to produce a given quantity of work, we may use these two substances alternately by producing work with one of them in the above process. At the end of the operations both bodies are in their original condition; further, the work produced will have exactly counterbalanced the work done, and therefore, by our former principle, the quantity of heat can have neither increased nor diminished. Changes will occur, on the one hand, in the distribution of the heat, since more heat will be transferred from B to A than from A to B, and so on the whole heat will be transferred from B to A, and on the other hand in the state of the operator that carries out the process. By repeating these two processes alternately it would be possible, without any expenditure of force or any other change, to transfer as much heat as we please from a cold to a hot body, and this is not in accord with the other relations of heat, since it always shows a tendency to equalize temperature differences and therefore to pass from hotter to colder bodies. However in "the other relations of heat" temperature differences can be equalized spontaneously, in the absence of an operator, whereas the process we consider is only possible in the presence of an operator unavoidably undergoing changes. Therefore we can draw no analogy between the process we consider and "other relations of heat" and always have to bear in mind the possible existence of "two substances of which the one can produce more work than the other by the transfer of a given amount of heat, or, what comes to the same thing, needs to transfer less heat from A to B to produce a given quantity of work".
The disciples of Clausius made the second law of thermodynamics both absolute and eternal by coining the curse "Perpetuum Mobile of the second kind" meaning that scientists trying to test the second law are just as mad as people trying to extract energy out of nothing.
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
Posted by: Pentcho Valev | January 12, 2007 09:05 AM
I was wondering about what I'm going to call the freak theory. When an organisam is evolving and is diffrent then everyone elsa either getting more legs or is smaller so they can get around better. My question is one why aren't they picked out of the crowd like those butterflies that were brown and every so often they would have a white one. This butterfly was eaten by the hawks and birds because it stuck out like a sore thumb beacuse the tree they lived on was of course brown. Then there was an accident and either the trees died or the ash in the air landed on the trees turning them white. This freak accident caused a reverse of roles and then the brown butterflies where eaten. Ok now we're going to back up a little bit, the white butterflies we're eaten!!!!!!! Because they were freaks and stood out in there enviroment they died. Also if the organism was weird would all the other species want to mate with that organism and continue the species with a freak???? Can someone please answer my questions or point me in the direction of someone who can.
(My email is jaflynn3@hotmail.com)
Posted by: Jessica | January 15, 2007 07:00 PM
To Pentcho:
For a mankind that always voted in his favor, your discussion of entropy, appears to describe one of the sneakiest rigged elections of mankind. There is always some point intermediate between any two points-but you have to be able to say what it is, if you describe a change in the two points, to be able to say anything at all about the intermediate points (agents), and frankly I do no think anything is known to say that could be included with in the same encyclopedia with A and B. Heat a flask,its' temperature changes, heat is lost from the outside, but little could be known about the glass of the flask if all the heat can be accounted for efficiently by measurement. Or if I jump on or off the earth, the earth has to have moved in opposite. The point in between moved simultaneously over all the areas of contact -one end of the earth to the other instantly, unless the earth is considered elastic(which it probably is-but where is a boundary of zero to positive change). We can stop a clock by unpluging its' current, the clock seems also to be an ideal system/component, it functions exclusively with respect to the properties of change and things that make things move.-the things that make it move seem directly influenced by the properties of matter-and the micromineature borders and boundaries of atoms molecules-the elctrical nature of things-rolls by each split second as if a real parameter-and we turn it off an on at will. What change in any agent exists at these levels-and how important is it-we have a description of gross change (temperature or time passed)and an accounting for things beyond witness, as if the total elements of the system.
As second analogy-if light can transmit momentum, and can also be said to have no mass(with a better common than to say it has a mass and can travel through a vaccum or in space) then we can say work can be accomplished energy expended, forces applied and momentum gained with the net accomplishement of any work at all(something that is massless can change in energy, but cannot be said to have accomplished work). So if I can get a gas guzzling Cadilac for a smother better ride, or even not bother to exert myself-sleep all the time what is the difference if no net work is accomplished anyways.
What kind of intellect do you think wrote for translation the laws of entropy in the form that are economically soring -a lazy sleeping freeloader, or the opposite with a possible attitude about the other that makes all honest work both good and honest- an agent not a visible component of the picture-and a society of busy bees today that does not know up from down-i.e. -all work alone is good.
What is the agent in a system of momentum-imparting light-in the small gap in between the weightless light energy and the mass of the imparted momentum-a better idea interms of symmetry than space time theory/relativity...? What could not cause insanity (even lazy sleeping freeloading in excess)but words and definition that refer, ultimately to that which is ultimately unknown and unknowable.-impractical for question, yet we are challanged to reflect on such notions as a consequence of the fallacies and errors of others. A person not have to understand the theory of relativity to reproduce-feed himself etc-yet it could become nesessary to to refuse a majority.
Posted by: marvin e kirsh | January 30, 2007 05:39 AM