I will bet an ounce of Spanish gold nailed to the mast of a whaling-ship that “starbuck” is Charlie Wagner, yet again: Panspermia is his Moby-Dick.

For those unaware, Jack Szostak is a researcher into the chemical origins of life. He has not suddenly given up and said that it is actually a hopeless venture.

Maybe he’s changing his mind.

Maybe you should too.

http://img42.yfrog.com/i/poeh.jpg/

(Poe)

“Szostak himself says that the origin of life is equivalent to the origin of evolution.”

What is so hard about accepting the possibility that life is much older than the earth and came to earth with all the information to allow the emergence of these “molecular contraptions” already in place?

For evolution to proceed, new genes must be installed from the outside. The really interesting question is “where did these genes come from”?

Carl: You cite Szostak as your authority, and yet Szostak explains research indicating how life may have begun on Earth.

Your new book not even out and already it’s been shown to be a tissue of falsehoods that have withered on the vine. After all your effort, though, perhaps you should allow a few thousand copies of your book to sell before you go public with your long-overdue renunciation of darwinian evolution.

In all honesty, I’m not sure how you could have made such an egregious error. You’ve written about Szostak (insightfully quoted by starbuck, above) and his colleagues several times: surely you must have noticed that their work is a paradigm-shifting challenge to the nonsensical idea of evolution?

Oh well; I pity you for the immediate redundancy of your book. In fact, I pity you so much I shall charitably buy a copy or two – if nothing else my grandchildren, some day in the future, will take pleasure in perusing the foolish myths which we used to believe in.

Sorrowfully yours,

Outeast

Carl: Outeast, save me your pity. I’ve written about Szostak’s work several times for places like Science and Discover. Szostak himself says that the origin of life is equivalent to the origin of evolution.

I hope you sell a lot of books.

I also urge you to renounce darwinian evolution.

The paradigm is shifting, the evidence is gathering,
and darwinian evolution is withering on the vine.

“Every living cell, even the simplest bacterium, teems with molecular contraptions that would be the envy of any nanotechnologist. As they incessantly shake or spin or crawl around the cell, these machines cut, paste and copy genetic molecules, shuttle nutrients around or turn them into energy, build and repair cellular membranes, relay mechanical, chemical or electrical messages—the list goes on and on, and new discoveries add to it all the time.
It is virtually impossible to imagine how a cell’s machines, which are mostly protein-based catalysts called enzymes, could have formed spontaneously as life first arose from nonliving matter around 3.7 billion years ago.”

Alonso Ricardo and Jack W. Szostak, “The Origin of Life on Earth” [preview], p 54-61 v 301, Scientific American, Sep 2009.

Also, I’m having the same problem as Claire regarding the layout of this post.

-Rusty

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/caturday-felids-sadie-and-zoe-militant-catheists/

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/06/further_evidence_that_i_am_a_m.php

I have refreshed this page a coupl e of times but no change – the text to one one side of this page (left) is very much overlapping the right area with Carl’s pic on it, if you see what I mean. The text part that overlaps is now a word column, but next to each picture, which looks odd. Could be my browser, but it appears ok on the other pages. Just thought be best to mention.

Claire

This is brilliant.

Totally well done with your book! ! (also my mums previous cat looked like thisd one)…
Claire

Yes, those sabretooth cats do look awe-inspiring, but I dont know if I’d call them cute….

best, T.