The Simple Life: Abiogenesis Gets Another Reality Check

Intelligent Design the Future

Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture

Science, Philosophy, Astronomy, Society & Culture, Life Sciences

4 • 993 Ratings

🗓️ 19 September 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When it comes to biological life, even the simplest single-celled organism is an astonishingly complex multi-part system. Just how simple can a living cell get? On this ID The Future, Eric Anderson hosts another conversation with Dr. Robert Sadler to evaluate the claims of abiogenesis researchers. A recent Nature paper reports on an engineered minimal cell and how it contends with the "forces of evolution" compared to the non-minimal cell from which it was derived. In an attempt to find life's lowest common denominator, experimenters reduced the minimal cell down from 901 genes to 473 genes. The result was a fragile, irregular organism, sheltered and well cared for. But does this reduction in genomic complexity demonstrate evolution or devolution? Is it an unguided process at work or adaptation within the boundaries of an organism's design? "When people speak of evolution, they speak of random changes and natural selection," Sadler says. "But are they really random? Or does the organism have a built-in ability to change the genome to its own benefit?" Sadler puts the paper's results and claims in perspective for us.

Source

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I. D. The Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design. What is the simplest form of life? Today even the simplest single-celled
0:16.7	organism is an astonishingly sophisticated multi-part system consisting of a
0:21.5	cell membrane ribosomes, enzymes, DNA, RNA repair mechanisms, and much more.
0:27.0	But according to the Naturalistic Origins account proposed by many scientists and science organizations, Life must have been much simpler in the
0:35.0	distant past in order for Abiogenesis to work. But how simple can a living cell actually
0:40.3	be? Welcome to ID the future.
0:42.8	I'm Eric Anderson and on today's show we're joined by Dr. Robert Stadler to talk about
0:46.9	the origin of life and the effort to determine the minimal viable cell.
0:52.0	Stadler received a degree in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University,
0:56.5	a master's in electrical engineering from MIT, and a PhD in medical engineering from the Harvard
1:01.6	MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.
1:05.2	He has worked in the medical device industry for more than 20 years, has over 140 patents,
1:10.2	and is co-author of the book, The Stairway to Life and Origin of Life reality check.
1:14.9	Great to have you back on the show, Rob.
1:16.3	Hey, great to be here.
1:17.3	Eric, it's always fun to talk about the origin of life.
1:20.3	Absolutely, one of my favorite topics. So Rob, I want to step back a minute and kind of remind our listeners where we've been in our discussions. We've had a number of conversations about the origin of life and the challenges for a biogenesis. I encourage our listeners to go back and
1:34.4	revisit those discussions. While each of those conversations can stand on their own, there's
1:39.6	an important connection that I just want to take a minute to emphasize.
1:43.0	Specifically, Abiogenesis research today is really proceeding from two separate angles.
1:48.0	And I'm not talking about, you know, metabolism first, RNA first, membrane first.
1:52.0	I'm talking about at a high level
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.