Hold fast everyone! I realize that the odds are seemingly very against
the formation of cellular material during the early days but the odds
were not so bad that a cell couldn't form little by little, step by step.
The odds that a modern day eukaryote (animal) cell could form on it's own
are probably similar to the chance of a working engine, constructed by
our familiar insensible monkeys.
Arron Blosser, I don't think I understood you properly; you seemed to
imply that a whole cellular system came together soon after the formation
of left-handed amino acid molecules? The amino acids that could, did
bond. They were able to create a functioning system known as a cellular
membrane. This simple membrane was a perfect net to catch and retain the
chemical energy that the 'life' entity used to 'grow'. This existed for a
while as a simple cellular membrane system, but not yet a cell as we now
know it. A lot of bonding took hold at this time. Granted, the other
amino acid molecules probably failed to bond or to form a circular
cellular membrane that could easily retain an energy source to continue
'living'. Their fuel sources drifted away from them, leaving them naked
and unprotected from the violating elements.
Over time, the safety of the cellular membrane gave energy and
protection to spend on more random events (more steps) leading up to the
creation simple organelles which formed and began functioning to improve
the 'cell's' competitive edges. A plethora of variation in organelles
formed, but evolution allowed only the smoothly working systems to
continue. The rest of the variety found that they could not get an energy
source easily enough since it was being quickly taken up and away by the
other competitive organelle systems.
The new competitive blob had time to haphazardly develop a genetic
system (thanks to the membrane and organelles working together) and it
became a kind of real cell. These membrane systems were like our modern
cells but behaved more like mitochondria and chloroplasts. These cells
began to need each other in a kind of symbiosis or codependence-based
relationship. One produced something that the other needed, so the kinds
of evolutionarily different cells merged together and formed a better
kind of cell. By the way, original DNA is still found in these
mitochondria and chloroplasts today (found as tenets in today's
prokaryotic cells) which is acceptable evidence of this ancient merge.
This was the formation of early prokaryote (plant) cells. These cells
formed things like bacteria, which were later eaten by the more advanced
euyarkote (animal) cells after they had developed.
>Now, what are the odds of enough of these amazingly rare proteins
existing
>close enough to each other and magically combining to form a
>self-replicating cell? Even more staggeringly impossible.
It does seem impossible yet there are billions of trillions of cells in
your body suggesting otherwise. Perhaps you meant that it was impossible
for a modern cell to be formed in one swoop from nothing before, much
like the impossibility of a Pentium II chip being the first chip ever
made.
There have to be prototypes in the beginning. The original system is
created, tested and then improvements are made. This makes the odds for a
completed system much better since the process is taken more slowly, and
fewer steps are taken at each interval. If a cell had to cover lots of
steps in once giant leap to become alive, then this would surely be too
excessive and the mass of protein would not become a cell. However, if a
developing cell only had to work on small improvements in little strides,
succession is easily granted.
People behave in the same way. What are the odds that you'll spend all
your time and effort revamping the family house in one month? You
wouldn't do all that improving in such a short time. You would divide up
the work over a longer time so as not to make the work too taxing and
exhausting. By taking smaller steps at a time, the odds that you'll
complete your task are much improved.
The odds of a cell being developed over the course of a long time from
little intervals of development are much more optimistic than those
chances of a cell becoming aloft from nothing and with no prototype. This
small step process is therefore very possible and plausible.
Given all the obstacles to a single protein forming, much less a single
cell, I'm amazed that some kids didn't find it interesting enough to pay
attention in class. I guess I'm just one of those unfortunate people that
learned this biology stuff at school and studied it at university, I
never had much interest in television.
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