No one is hiding a cure for cancer

Posted on July 9, 2018 by Fallacy Man

A cure for cancer is something of a holy grail in medicine, and many people would have you believe that we’ve already found it, but it’s existence is being hidden and suppressed by greedy companies who only care about profit. These people are, however, wrong, and a cure for cancer is just as mythical as the holy grail itself. Indeed, as I will explain, this conspiracy theory fails at every level. It has no supporting evidence, it is entirely an assumption, and it makes no sense scientifically, logically, or economically.

A single cure is scientifically implausible

First, it is absolutely crucial to realize the cancer is not a single disease. Rather, there are many different types of cancer, each of which behaves differently, and each of which will require a unique treatment/cure. Once you actually understand what cancer is and how it behaves, it quickly becomes clear that the very notion of a single cure for cancer is absurd. It is highly unlikely that there will ever be a single solution to all cancers. Rather, there will be different solutions for the different types of cancer. So, right off the bat, we can see that this conspiracy theory is bunk, because it completely ignores the complexity of cancer and proposes the existence of an implausible solution.

Why wouldn’t a cure be profitable?

This conspiracy theory postulates that companies are hiding a cure for cancer because a cure isn’t profitable. That premise has, however, never made the slightest bit of sense to me. How on earth would a cure not be immensely profitable? Purveyors of “natural remedies” already make a fortune off of “cures” that don’t even work, so why wouldn’t pharmaceutical companies be able to profit from an actual cure?

Some people try to counter this by claiming that companies make more from treating cancer than they would from curing it, but couldn’t a company simply charge the same amount for a cure that they currently charge for a full course of treatment? This argument seems to assume that cures would be sold for reasonable prices, but given that pharmaceutical companies have a long history of charging exorbitant prices for products that are relatively cheap for them to make, that assumption is clearly ridiculous. Further, never forget that there are multiple pharmaceutical companies that compete with each other. So, if one of them came out with a cure, they would have a monopoly on the market. How could that possibly be anything other than immensely profitable? Additionally, even beyond the direct profits from the monopoly on the cure, just think about how much good publicity that company would get, and think about investors. Who wouldn’t want to invest in a company that just announced a cure for cancer?

At this point, I usually find that people invoke planned obsolescence and the concept that a cure would be such a great product, that it would quickly put the company out of business. The idea of planned obsolescence is basically this, if you make a product that is really good and lasts forever, you’ll quickly saturate the market and have no one left to sell to. If, for example, you make a microwave that lasts forever, then once everyone has one, you have no one left to sell to. Thus, some companies design their products to eventually fail, that way there are always people who need the product.

I don’t deny that planned obsolescence is a real thing that companies do, but it has absolutely no bearing on the topic of cancer cures, because there will always be new cases of cancer. In other words, this isn’t a situation where once you’ve cured everyone’s cancer, there will never be more cases of cancer. Rather, there will always be new cancer cases. Indeed, over 1.7 million people are diagnosed with cancer annually in the US alone. Worldwide, that number is closer to 15 million. That’s a pretty steady income stream if you have a cure. Further, having a cure gives you repeat customers, not only for cancer, but also for countless other medicines that pharmaceutical companies produce. After all, who are you going to sell Viagra to if everyone is dying of cancer before they need it?

Cures and preventions already exist for many conditions

The next critical flaw in this conspiracy theory is the fact that many cures already exist for various conditions. Take antibiotics, for example. According to the argument that a treatment is worth more than a cure, a prolonged hospital stay from an out-of-control infection is surely worth more to pharmaceutical companies than a simple course of antibiotics, so why do they sell antibiotics? Similarly, the HPV vaccine actually prevents some types of cancer and costs only a tiny fraction of the cost of treating cancer! So if this conspiracy was true, then why on earth do pharmaceutical companies produce that vaccine?

Why do companies invest in cancer research?

In my opinion, this is one of the best pieces of evidence against this conspiracy. Pharmaceutical companies invest billions of dollars in studying cancer. Why would they do that if they already have a cure that they have no intention of ever using? How is it profitable to spend billions of dollars looking for something that you already have and will never use?

I’ve yet to have someone give me a reasonable answer to this, but I want to briefly talk about a response that I’ve heard that always amuses me. This response suggests that companies do this to keep their competitors from getting the cure, but if you think about that for five seconds, an obvious problem emerges. Keeping your competitor from having the cure only makes sense if your competitor can profit from it, so if they can profit from it, why can’t you? In other words, this response acknowledges that a cure would actually be profitable.

There are lots of independent scientists studying cancer

I don’t understand why conspiracy theorists never seem to realize that there are thousands of independent scientists who aren’t beholden to companies and who have absolutely no reason not to go public with a discovery like a cure for cancer. Do these people know about the cure? If so, why aren’t they telling anyone? Further, if the cure is as simple and obvious as most proponents of this conspiracy theory seem to think, then if these scientists don’t know of the existence of the cure, why haven’t they discovered it themselves?

Cancer affects everyone

Nearly 40% of people will develop cancer at some point in their lives, and almost everyone has lost a friend or relative to cancer. This is important, because it means that everyone involved in this conspiracy would not only have to be willing to let millions of people die annually from cancer, but they would also have to be willing to let their loved ones or even themselves die rather than letting the cure become public knowledge. That’s not likely. It’s easy to forget that big corporations are run by people, and they may be greedy, but when their spouse, child, etc. is dying of cancer, they are going to want that cure just as badly as anyone else, and they’d pay anything for it. Further, keep in mind that if a cure existed, tons of people would know about it. An entire research team consisting of numerous scientists, lab techs, interns, etc. would be aware of it. Countless people involved in budgeting and finances would be aware of it, numerous CEOs would know about it, etc. All it takes is for one of them to grow a conscience and the whole thing is shot. Yes, there would be consequences for breaching a contract, but history is full of people who sacrificed far more for far less than a cure for cancer.

Fortune and glory

indiana jones fortune and glory kidAnother thing that people often overlook is that fact that if a team of scientists found a true cure for cancer, they would win immeasurable fortune and glory. A cure for cancer is a guaranteed Nobel prize. It would give you a spot on any talk show you wanted to be a guest on, multiple book deals, your face on the cover of Time Magazine, etc. Further, beyond the public fame, you would be known professionally as one of the best in your field, and every university in the world would be begging for you to give guest lectures, be the head of a department, etc. Indeed, you would go down in medical history alongside the greats like Jonas Salk and Louis Pasteur. Your name would be taught to elementary school children for generations to come. Who in their right mind would turn that down? No scientist would sit on a discovery like that.

Now, you may try to counter this by saying that these scientists are under contractual obligation with the companies not to make their results public. I would respond to that by directing you to the previous sections on independent scientists and the fact that cancer affects everyone. Further, given the immense rewards for this discovery, I have a hard time accepting that most scientists wouldn’t be willing to face the consequences of breaching their contract.

Cancer treatments have been improving

In addition to everything else I’ve said, I want to point out that all of those billions of dollars we’ve spent on cancer research haven’t been wasted. Our knowledge of cancer and our ability to treat it has increased greatly. Indeed, over the past 30 years, the survival rate for cancer has increased 20–23% (depending on which ethnic group we are talking about)! That’s a huge increase. It has been particularly pronounced for certain cancers like lymphocytic leukemia, for which the survival rate went from 41% to 70%. Similarly, chronic myeloid leukemia went from a 31% survival rate to a 63% survival rate. Why are the survival rates for cancer going up? Because scientists are doing real research, and companies are marketing the results of that research. Also, let’s be clear here that many of these people were cured of their cancer. Most of them aren’t receiving life-long treatments. In other words, we already cure many cases of cancer. So if Big Pharma had no interest in curing people, then why are the rates of cancer survival going up? (stats are from the American Cancer Society’s 2016 Cancer Statistics report)

Look, science is a slow, steady process of accumulating knowledge, and the idea that it is even possible to suddenly find a magical cure for all cancer is naïve and childish. It completely ignores the incredible complexity of cancer. Remember, there are lots of different types of cancer, each of which has to be treated differently. Further, cancer is more challenging than many diseases because we have to fight our own cells. Making a cure for something like a bacterial infection is comparatively simple, because bacterial cells are chemically quite different from our cells, so we just need a drug that targets bacterial chemistry, but doesn’t interact with our cells. Cancer is more complicated because the differences between a cancer cell and a healthy cell are far more subtle. Healthy cells and cancerous cells share the vast majority of their chemistry. So figuring out a way to target cancer cells without affecting healthy cells is extraordinarily difficult. As a result, scientists have never expected to find a single simple solution. No one writes a grant application that says, “I’m going to cure cancer.” Rather, we chip away at the puzzle one little piece at a time, with each piece of evidence building on the last. We gradually accumulate knowledge and improved treatments. That is how research actually works, and that is what has been taking place.

There’s no evidence of a conspiracy

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is absolutely no evidence that a cure exists and is being hidden, and you have to have that evidence before you can claim otherwise. In other words, even if everything that I had said thus far was incorrect, even if a single cure for cancer was scientifically plausible, and even if it really wouldn’t be worth butt-loads of money, and even if scientists would be willing to pass up a Nobel Prize, and even if companies weren’t already making cures for various conditions, and even if companies were willing to waste billions on irrelevant research, and even if every single person involved with cancer research was a greedy SOB, that still wouldn’t make it rational to conclude that a cure exists. In other words, even if you came up with a compelling argument that demonstrated that a cure would be suppressed if it was ever found, that wouldn’t automatically mean that one has been found. This entire conspiracy is 100% an assumption. It is a belief that is based on people’s gut feelings, rather than evidence. It is no different than believing in alien abductions, Big Foot, or the Loch Ness Monster, and just like all of those things, it is a belief that is not rational unless you can provide compelling evidence that the object of your belief is real. You have to have evidence. That is how the burden of proof works.

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Occam’s razor is about assumptions, not simplicity

Posted on June 26, 2018 by Fallacy Man
occam's razor meme peope complex answers simple

Image via The Questionist

Occam’s razor is an important tool for critical thinking, and it is employed constantly in science. Nevertheless, it is often misunderstood and is frequently (and erroneously) stated as, “the simplest solution is usually the correct one.” This is an unfortunate and misleading way to phrase the razor, because it leads people to conclude that conceptually simpler hypotheses are more likely to be correct, and that isn’t actually true. I have, for example, shared images like the one above multiple times on my blog’s Facebook page, and almost without fail, someone responds to them with something to the effect of, “Occam would have something to say about this.” The reality is, however, that Occam’s razor is actually about making assumptions, not conceptual simplicity. In other words, a “simple” hypothesis is one that doesn’t make unnecessary assumptions, not one that is conceptually simple.

I will elaborate on what I mean by unnecessary assumptions in a moment, but first I want to talk a bit more about conceptual simplicity. If you have ever really studied science, then it should be obvious to you that reality isn’t simple. Indeed, the history of science is largely the history of replacing a conceptually simple understanding of nature with an increasingly complicated understanding. In the pre-science era, many people had a very simple understanding of nature. There were only four elements, the earth was the center of the universe, etc. Those ideas were all replaced with far more complex scientific explanations, but those complex explanations are correct.

This accumulation of complexity happens constantly within science. Gravity provides a good example of this. Newton’s understanding of gravity was far simpler than the more complicated general relativity model proposed by Einstein, but that doesn’t make Einstein wrong nor does it mean that he violated any guidelines of logical thought by proposing it. Indeed, science has repeatedly confirmed that Einstein was right, and we need his conceptually complex model to account for how nature works. Biology has gone through similar revisions. Our modern understanding of evolution, for example, is far more complicated and nuanced than what Darwin proposed. There are many additional (and very correct) layers of complexity that have been added to our understanding over the years (e.g., neutral evolution, punctuated equilibrium, etc.). Indeed, most, if not all, branches of science have experienced similar increases in complexity, and that’s fine. It doesn’t violate Occam’s razor.

Note: In the examples above (and many examples for core scientific topics), the original idea was not wrong so much as incomplete. Darwin and Newton were mostly right, there were just some special circumstances that they weren’t aware of.

Having said that, you should never make a model, hypothesis, etc. more complicated than it needs to be, but simply saying, “hypothesis X is complex and hypothesis Y is simple” doesn’t really tell you much about which one is more likely to be correct. Assumptions, in contrast, tell you a great deal about which hypothesis is more likely to be correct.

Assumptions are the heart of what Occam’s razor is actually about, and the correct way to state the razor is that you should never make more assumptions than are strictly necessary. This concept, sometimes referred to as parsimony, is a guiding principle of science. Everything should be based on evidence and known facts, and the further outside of the known you have to step, the more likely you are to be wrong.

If you think about this for a second, it should make good, intuitive sense. Assumptions are, by definition, things that may or may not be true. Thus, the more potentially untrue components your hypothesis has, the higher the probability that it will be wrong. We can describe this mathematically. Let’s say, for sake of example, that you have a hypothesis that makes one assumption and there is a 90% chance that your assumption is correct (pretend we know that somehow). Watson also has a hypothesis, but his hypothesis makes three assumptions, each of which has a 90% chance of being correct. Your hypothesis only has a 10% chance that its assumption is wrong; whereas for Watson’s hypothesis, there is a 27% chance that at least one of the assumptions is wrong. Thus, it is obvious that his hypothesis is less likely to be correct (see this post for probability calculations).

In case math isn’t your thing, we can use some every-day examples to illustrate this as well. Imagine that you get in your car and try to start it, but when you turn the key, the engine won’t start. It won’t even turn over. Now, there are several possible hypotheses. The most obvious three are that it is the battery, starter, or alternator, but let’s say that you have an additional piece of information. Let’s say that yesterday you had your alternator and battery tested, and they both checked out as fine. Now, which of those three hypotheses is more likely to be correct based on the information you have? It’s obviously the starter, right? You just had the other two tested, so it’s reasonable to conclude that they likely aren’t the problem. This is a perfectly rational and intuitive conclusion, but when we break it down, it’s really just an application of Occam’s razor. Consider, the starter hypothesis proposes only one unknown: there is something wrong with the starter. In contrast, both the battery and alternator hypotheses require additional assumptions, because not only must there be something wrong with one of those car parts, but you also have to assume that the test equipment you used yesterday was faulty, or that a problem happened to develop right after being tested, etc. You have to make an assumption that is not required for the starter hypothesis.

To further illustrate this, we can construct hypotheses with additional assumptions. I could, for example, propose that the starter, battery, and alternator all died simultaneously. Now I have multiple assumptions running, and I trust that it is clear that it is unlikely for all of those things to have gone bad at the same time. We can make it even more ridiculous though by also assuming that in addition to those three parts, the ignition coil, spark plugs, and spark plug wires are also dead (see note). Do you see my point? Every time that we add another unnecessary assumption, the odds of the hypothesis being correct go down. We don’t need to be making assumptions about spark plugs, ignition coils, etc., and therefore we shouldn’t. We should work with what we know and add other assumptions only if they become strictly necessary.

Note: Yes, I know that bad spark plugs, spark plug wires, and the ignition coil(s) would not prevent the engine from turning over, but that only further illustrates the absurdity of assuming that they also stopped working. 

I want to segue here briefly into a related topic: ad hoc fallacies. These fallacies are prevalent in anti-science arguments, and they are fundamentally failures to apply Occam’s razor. They occur when, after being faced with evidence that defeats your position, you invent a solution (i.e., make an assumption) that serves no function other than attempting to patch the hole in your argument.

Let me give an example. Suppose that a friend is with you when your car won’t start, and suppose that you have bragged to him repeatedly about how your car is impervious to faults and can’t break-down. Thus, upon seeing your car’s failure to start, he snidely says, “so much for your car never breaking down.” You are, however, unwilling to acknowledge that your car is capable of having flaws, so instead, you claim that someone must have sabotaged it. That is an ad hoc fallacy. You arbitrarily assumed that someone sabotaged your car even though you have no evidence to support that claim and even though it breaks Occam’s razor by making unnecessary assumptions.

That example may seem absurd and obviously silly, but people do this all the time. For example, anytime that you see someone in an internet debate blindly accuse their opponent of being a “shill,” they are committing this fallacy. Rather than accepting contrary evidence, they are blindly assuming that their opponent has a conflict of interest. Similarly, when people blindly reject scientific studies based on assumptions that the studies were funded by major companies, they are committing this fallacy. Indeed, anytime that someone resorts to a conspiracy theory to dismiss a contrary piece of evidence, they are committing this fallacy and are being irrational.

This brings me to my final point. Namely, the quality of the assumptions matters as well as the quantity. In other words, some assumptions are more justified than others. Someone could, for example be pedantic about my car example and argue that saying that the starter died and saying that the starter and spark plugs died both make the same number of assumptions because the first one implicitly assumes that the spark plugs did not die. It should be obvious, however, that (unless you have been having perpetual problems with your car) the default position should be to assume that things work. Every time that you get in your car, you’re implicitly assuming that all of its necessary parts work. Technically, you could argue that the opposite hypothesis (i.e., that none of the parts work) makes the same number of assumptions, but one set of assumptions is clearly more justified than the other (the reasons behind that get into inductive logic and the burden of proof and other concepts that I don’t have time to go into here). The same is true in science and debates. It is not valid to, for example, assume that the entire scientific community is involved in a massive conspiracy, and you can’t try to validate that assumption by saying that everyone else is assuming that the conspiracy doesn’t exist. Those two assumptions are not equal, and you need some concrete evidence before you can claim that there is a conspiracy.

In short, Occam’s razor does not state that the simplest solution is more likely to be correct. Rather, it says that the solution that makes the fewest assumptions is more likely to be correct; therefore, you should restrict your assumptions to only the ones that are absolutely necessary to explain the phenomena in question. A solution can be very complicated and still likely be correct if it is based on facts, not assumptions. Indeed, the answers science produces tend to be conceptually complex, and the history of science is a graveyard of simple ideas that were replaced with more complex ones.

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Vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe,” but that doesn’t mean they are dangerous

Posted on June 14, 2018 by Fallacy Man

vaccineI have increasingly seen anti-vaccers citing the fact that vaccines are considered “unavoidably unsafe,” as proof that vaccines are dangerous and should be avoided. In reality, however, the term “unavoidably unsafe” is just legal jargon that does not mean what anti-vaccers think it means. So let’s talk about what it actually means

The first thing to realize is that this is a legal term, not a scientific one. This is not a term that scientists use when doing risk assessments or testing the safety of drugs. So right off the bat, we have a huge problem because this argument is conflating legal terms with scientific ones (I’ll return to that at the end). So what does this legal term actually mean?

Basically, it means that there is nothing that can be done to make the product safer without compromising the function of the product. The term comes from the legal document, “Restatement (Second) of Torts, Section 402A,” and it is about protecting manufacturers from frivolous law suits, not about providing consumers with health information. The basic idea is simply that companies cannot be held accountable for an injury that arises from unavoidably unsafe products because there was nothing that the company could have done to prevent that injury (inherent in this term is the requirement that the product was manufactured correctly, labelled correctly with adequate instructions for how to administer it, etc.).

Let me give you an example of what that means. The term is generally not applied to food, but if it was, peanut butter could be considered unavoidably unsafe, because some people have allergic reactions to peanut butter, and there is nothing that a peanut butter company can do to prevent that. In other words, there is no way to manufacture peanut butter without that risk being present. Thus (assuming that the product was manufactured and labelled correctly), a peanut butter company would not be liable if someone had an allergic reaction to the peanut butter, because that reaction was not the result of manufacture negligence. Now, does that mean that peanut butter is dangerous? No, obviously not. For the majority of us it is perfectly fine. “Unavoidably unsafe” does not mean that a product is dangerous and should be avoided. Rather, it simply means that are risks that cannot be removed.

When we apply that to vaccines, we see the same thing. Vaccines have side effects. No one has ever denied that, but serious side effects are rare, and the benefits far outweigh the risks. Indeed, Section 402A specified that “unavoidably unsafe” products should have benefits that outweigh their risks. So labeling vaccines as unavoidably unsafe absolutely does not mean that they are dangerous and should be avoided. It simply means that there are risks that are not manufacture’s fault. Also, just to be 100% clear here, everything has risks, including the decision not to vaccinate. People often focus on the risk of taking an action and ignore the risk from not taking that action, but a correct risk assessment has to consider both, and for vaccines, the risk from not vaccinating is much higher than the risk from vaccinating.

Finally, I want to return to me previous comment about this being a legal term not a scientific term. Those who deny science frequently like to cite courts, legal documents, etc. as evidence of their position, but that is simply not how science works. Even if a legal body like the Supreme Court had said that vaccines are dangerous, that would not be evidence that vaccines are dangerous. Lawyers and judges are not scientists. When they make a statement about science, they are stepping outside of their area of expertise. Further, even if they were scientists, that wouldn’t turn what they say into a fact. In other words, when they say something it doesn’t automatically become true. Whether or not something is a fact has to be determined by conducting studies. That is where scientific evidence comes from, and scientific studies overwhelmingly support the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Trying to use a legal ruling as evidence against scientific studies is foolhardy. It is also pretty ironic and hypocritical for anti-vaccers (a group that is notorious for distrusting the government) to cite a government ruling as if it gives them a checkmate.

In short, “unavoidably unsafe” is simply a legal term that means the manufacture is not liable because they cannot do anything to make the product safer. It does not mean that the product is dangerous and should be avoided.

Note: Some pedants may take issue with the way that I have been using the term “dangerous” and, admittedly, even some documents about “unavoidably unsafe” products use it in a way that is inconsistent with how we usually use the term. So, when I say “dangerous” I mean a product or activity with a high enough chance of causing harm and low enough benefits that it should be avoided. That does not mean, however, that there is no chance of something “safe” causing harm. Swimming, for example, is not something that I would usually consider “dangerous” even though death is possible. Swimming during a thunder storm, however, I would consider dangerous. See the difference?

Recommended further reading

Schwartz. 1985. Unavoidably unsafe products: Clarifying the meaning and policy behind comment K. Washington and Lee Law Review 42: 1139–1148.

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Posted in Vaccines/Alternative Medicine | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Bt GMOs reduce pesticides, increase yields, and benefit farmers (including organic farmers)

Posted on March 20, 2018 by Fallacy Man

Few technologies have been demonized to the same extent as genetic engineering. According to countless websites, GMOs are an evil scourge on the earth that destroy biodiversity, use exorbitant levels of pesticides, and hybridize rampantly with wild crops, and all of that is before we even get to the (largely false) claims about Monsanto. Reality, however, shows a rather different picture, especially when it comes to Bt GMOs, which are what I want to focus on for this post. You see, one of the problems with GMO debates is that people on both sides tend to lump all GMOs together, but there are actually lots of different types of GMOs with different properties and different pros and cons. Of these different types, Bt GMOs are arguably one of the best, and as I will show, they actually reduce pesticide use, increase crop yields (thus reducing land use), increase profits for farmers, and are safer for the environment than their conventional counterparts (including organic farming). Further, they actually benefit farmers who don’t grow GMOs by providing a protective “halo” around their farms that protect them from insect pests. As a result, non-GMO farms that are near Bt GMO farms actually use less pesticides and enjoy higher profits than they would without the GMO farms.

Note: Many Bt GMOs are not herbicide resistant (i.e., aren’t designed for use with glyphosate [aka roundup]), so if your issue with GMOs is that you don’t like glyphosate, you should be fine with many Bt GMO crops (also you should read the actual scientific literature on glyphosate).

Bt pesticides and Bt GMOs

Before we can talk about the benefits of Bt GMOs, we need to talk about the alternatives and history of Bt. Bt toxin is actually a crystalline protein produced by the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis, and decades ago, scientists discovered that it was a very effective pesticide against certain groups of insects, while being safe for most other organisms. There are three reasons for this. First, the acidic stomachs of mammals (and many other animals) degrades the protein. Second, only part of the protein is potentially dangerous, and it has to be broken down in a highly alkaline environment (which is present in insect guts, but not most animals) to release the potentially dangerous part. Third, it operates by binding to specific receptors that are found on certain insect guts, but not the guts of other animals. Thus, its mode of action simply doesn’t work on humans and most other animals (for more details about mode of action, see Kumar and Chandra 2008 and this page from Harvard). As a result, it is safe for humans and most animals at anything but an extremely high dose (Mendelsohn et al. 2003; remember, even water is fatally toxic at a high dose [Garigan and Ristedt 1999]).

All of these properties make Bt toxin an ideal pesticide, and it was widely adopted, particularly for organic farming (yes, organic farming uses pesticides as well, just not “synthetic” pesticides). As far as pesticides go, it is a pretty safe one, but it is still not without problems. First, the spraying process takes time and money, uses water, burns fossil fuels, has to be done multiple times a year, etc. Additionally, when it is sprayed on crops, it kills a wide range of insects that were on the crops, not just the ones that actually eat the crops. Further, spraying has to be timed correctly, it doesn’t provide continuous protection, etc. Also, it is far from the only insecticide being used, and many are far worse for the environment. This is where GMOs come in.

Clever scientists figured out a way to genetically engineer plants to produce Bt toxin themselves. As a result, minimal spraying is needed, because the plant produces its own pesticide (keep in mind, this pesticide is very safe for humans). This saves farmers time and money, provides continuous protection (resulting in higher crop yields), and has fewer effects on non-target species. I’ll elaborate on all of these points below.

Note: Pesticides are simply chemicals used to kill pest species. Insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc. are all types of pesticides that target specific groups (insects, plants, and fungi, respectively).

Reduced pests, reduced pesticides, increased yields, and increased profits

I sometimes hear those who oppose GMOs claim that GMOs haven’t delivered on their promises, but when it comes to Bt GMOs (as well as most other GMOs), that is demonstrably false. Numerous studies have consistently confirmed that Bt GMOs greatly reduce pest populations, which results in less damage to the crops (Hutchison et al. 2010; Lu and Desneux 2012; Dively et al. 2018). Further, all of this is accomplished while using less pesticides (Shelton et al. 2002; Cattaneo 2006; Lu and Desneux 2012). This, of course, also translates to higher yields and higher profits for farmers (Shelton et al. 2002; Cattaneo 2006; Vitale et al. 2010). Indeed, one study estimated that over a 14 year period, Bt maize (aka corn) saved farmers in Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin $3.2 billion, and saved farmers in Iowa and Nebraska $3.6 billion (Hutchison et al. 2010). So, don’t believe the anti-GMO horror story that GMOs are somehow bad for farmers. They aren’t. Farmers choose to use them because they benefit the farmers.

Note: The studies cited in this post came from a wide range of countries, not just developing countries. Australia, the USA, China, European countries, and African countries are all represented in the studies I cited throughout.

Environmental benefits

As explained in the previous section, Bt GMOs use significantly less pesticides than their conventional/organic counterparts. That reduction stems from the fact that non-GMO crops are frequently sprayed with insecticides; whereas the Bt GMOs produce their own insecticides, which greatly reduces the need for spraying pesticides. So, if your biggest concern with GMOs is that they use too many pesticides, then you should support Bt GMOs, because they use substantially less than other agriculture methods (including organic).

Because of the targeted nature of GMOs, this reduction in pesticide use translates directly to improved biodiversity, while still effectively killing pests. When a field is sprayed with an insecticide (even a fairly safe one like the Bt spray used in organic farming), a large range of insects in the field are affected, even if they aren’t pest species. In other words, things like bees and monarch butterflies (particularly their caterpillars) can be killed by the pesticide, even though they aren’t pest species and don’t eat the crops (depending on the pesticide, there can also be negative effects for other wildlife, aquatic ecosystems, etc). This is inevitable collateral damage from spraying pesticides. The Bt GMOs, however, are very targeted. Insects need to actually eat the plant to get the toxin. As a result, innocent, non-pest species that just happen to be in the field are largely unaffected. Plus, there are no pesticides running into waterways and the other negative effects of pesticides are eliminated.

To be clear, this isn’t speculative, dozens of studies have confirmed this. Indeed, several meta-analyses of the literature have found that Bt GMOs do not adversely affect non-target species, and, compared to crops that are sprayed with Bt, they have significantly better insect diversity (Marvier et al. 2007; Wolfenbarger et al. 2008; Comas et al. 2014). Additionally, one study found that by reducing the use of pesticides, Bt GMOs actually increased populations of insect predators, such as birds (Lu and Desneux 2012). So, if your concern with GMOs is biodiversity, then, once again, you should be supporting Bt GMOs, because they are demonstrably better than the alternatives.

Having said that, there are reports of some non-target insects being affected by Bt GMOs, but these are usually insects that specialize on eating or parasitising pest species (Wolfenbarger et al. 2008). So, in many cases, it’s not that the GMO itself harms them, but rather that the GMO kills their prey. Also, to be 100% clear, studies comparing Bt GMOs to conventional crops that are not sprayed at all have found that there is a slight difference in diversity levels (likely at least partially from the type of ecological interactions I just described; Whitehouse et al. 2005), but the expectation that most crops shouldn’t be sprayed at all is unrealistic (it is a nirvana fallacy) and would result in other environmental problems (e.g., increased land area, tilling methods that damage the soil, etc.).

It’s also worth explicitly stating that the safety of Bt GMOs still holds true even if we look at specific groups that people care greatly about, like bees and butterflies. There was initial concern that the pollen from Bt crops could adversely affect these groups, but that suggestion was based on unrealistic exposure levels, it ignored the fact that they are affected by sprays, and subsequent studies have failed to find evidence that these crops harm bees (Duan et al. 2008) and non-pest butterflies (Mendelsohn et al. 2003). Further, Bt GMOs have one final benefit: reduced habitat loss.

Habitat loss and fragmentation is the single biggest threat to biodiversity (Newbold et al. 2015; Wilson et al. 2016; Young et al. 2016). Further, conversion of natural lands to agriculture is the biggest cause of habitat loss (Foley et al. 2005; Phalan et al. 2016) and is well known to be a serious threat to conservation (Martinuzzi et al. 2015; Tilman et al. 2017). This is one of the key reasons why, as a conservation biologist, I support GMOs. They have a higher yield than conventional crops, which means that they need less land to grow the same amount of food. Therefore, from an environmental standpoint, they are tremendously beneficial. Indeed, increasing crop yields is often argued as a key strategy for preserving biodiversity (Phalan et al. 2016; Tilman et al. 2017).

Let me try to explain it this way. All agriculture is bad for biodiversity. When you take a natural forest or grassland, clear it, and plant crops, you will inevitably lose a large number of species that used to live there. People often seem to have this idyllic view of farms (particularly organic farms) as if all the animals and plants that lived in the forest before it was cleared will somehow continue to live in the organic farm field. This is a fairy tale. Even if you rotate your crops, never till the soil, and never use any pesticides, the biodiversity of that farm field will still be substantially lower than what it was before you turned it into a farm field, because the field doesn’t contain the various habitat types that many animals need (e.g., a forest species is not going to live in a field). People seem to have no trouble realizing this when it comes to things like clearing rainforests to grow palm oil, but for some reason, when it comes to crops in countries like the USA and European countries, people suddenly don’t seem to realize how harmful clearing land for agriculture actually is, but its negative effects on biodiversity are well-documented (Krauss et al. 2010; Martinuzzi et al. 2015). As a result, methods that increase yield (thus reducing land use) are extremely beneficial for conservation.

Benefits to non-GMO farmers

If you listen to the anti-GMO crowd, they often operate under the pretense of protecting farmers who don’t grow GMOs, but as usual, reality is quite different. Indeed, several studies have confirmed that non-GMO farmers benefit tremendously from having Bt GMO farms near them. This is the case because the Bt GMO farms protect the non-GMO farms via what has been called the “halo effect.” You see, the Bt GMOs do such a good job of killing pest species, that the populations for those species decline in the areas where Bt GMOs are grown (Carrière 2003; Wu et al. 2008; Dively et al. 2018). Additionally, as mentioned earlier, Bt GMOs result in increased populations of generalist predators (such as birds) compared to non-GMO crops, and these predators act as biological control agents on the fields in their area (Lu and Desneux 2012). As a result of both of these factors, in the areas around Bt GMO farms, there are fewer pest insects to attack the non-GMO crops, and non-GMO farmers enjoy less crop damage, higher yields, and higher profits than they would if there were no GMO farms around (Hutchison et al. 2010; Wan et al. 2012; Dively et al. 2018). Remember that study that I mentioned earlier that found that Bt corn saved farmers billions of dollars? In Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin $2.4 billion of those savings were by non-GMO farmers, and in Iowa and Nebraska $1.9 billion were by non-GMO farmers. Further, this protective halo effect allows non-GMO farmers to use fewer pesticide applications than they would need to otherwise (Wu et al. 2008; Hutchison et al. 2010; Dively et al. 2018). So, both the environmental and economic benefits of Bt GMOs spill over into the non-GMO farms.

Benefits to human health

In addition to the benefits to the environment and farmers, Bt GMOs have also been demonstrated to be safer for humans because of reduced mycotoxins (Pellegrino et al. 2018). These are chemicals produced by fungi, and can end up in our food when fungi are growing on the crops. The Bt crops don’t actually kill the fungi, but they do kill the pest-insects that make habitats for the fungi. You see, the fungi like to grow in the holes created by pest insects chewing on the plants. So, fewer pest insects means fewer holes, which means less fungi and less mycotoxins (Pellegrino et al. 2018). I don’t want to oversell this, because, at least in first world countries, food is usually checked for mycotoxin contamination, so food with it usually gets thrown out. Nevertheless, the filtering process is not 100% effective, and they are still a concern. So, the Bt GMOs do in fact reduce your risk of this (also, they reduce food waste, by reducing the amount of infected crops that get thrown out).

What about pesticide resistance?

At this point, people usually bring up pesticide resistance. This is the evolved resistance to Bt toxin that ultimately causes Bt to be ineffective at controlling insect populations (it is analogous to antibiotic resistance). This certainly is a problem, but it is not a problem that is limited to GMOs. Indeed, insects were documented evolving resistance to Bt long before GMOs were available (remember, Bt is used as a spray in many non-GMO farms, including organic farms; McGaughey 1985; Tabashnik et al. 1990). So even if all the Bt GMO fields were replaced with organic fields (as some would like to see happen) we would still be having this problem because resistance to a widely used pesticide is an inevitable outcome of natural selection (at least inevitable without careful management).

The second problem with this argument is that resistance to Bt simply means that we can’t use Bt anymore. So, saying that we shouldn’t use Bt because it will create Bt resistant insects makes absolutely no sense. It is literally saying, “we shouldn’t use Bt, because if we use Bt we won’t be able to use Bt.”

Third, although resistance is a problem, it is not an insurmountable one. One current strategy that is widely used is to have “refuge” fields that are not Bt GMOs and are not treated with Bt (Siegfried and Hellmich 2012). Indeed, in the USA, the EPA requires farmers who use Bt corn to have at least 20% of their fields as refuge fields. This is a good strategy because of how natural selection works. I don’t want to get too bogged down in the details here, but in short, Bt GMOs (or Bt sprays) kill the majority of pest insects in the field, and only a handful that have alleles that are resistant to Bt will survive. If those insects mate with each other, we will quickly get a resistant population where all the insects have resistant alleles. By having a nearby refuge, however, we have a large population that is not resistant, making it more likely that the resistant insects will mate with the non-resistant insects, and the alleles for being resistant will be diluted. Indeed, it is well known that gene flow can swamp adaptation in this way (Kawecki and Ebert 2004; Foster et al. 2007; Funk et al. 2012; read this series for more about how evolutionary mechanisms work). Other strategies are also being developed and tested, so this is very much a situation where we should take the necessary precautions to prevent insect resistant, but there is no reason to use insect resistance as a general argument against the crops. As the old saying goes, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Conclusion

In short, Bt GMOs have tremendous benefits and are actually the opposite of most anti-GMO claims. For example, GMO opponents claim that GMOs increase pesticide use, but Bt GMOs greatly reduce it. Similarly, you may have heard the claim that GMOs are bad for biodiversity, but Bt GMOs are actually far better for it than non-GMO crops (including organic crops) because they are more targeted and have fewer effects on non-target species. Further, habitat loss is the dominant threat to biodiversity, but because Bt GMOs increase yields, they reduce the need for clearing habitat for agriculture. Additionally, they benefit farmers by increasing yields and profits, and they even benefit non-GMO farmers by providing a protective “halo” that increases the non-GMO farmers’ yields and profits and reduces their need for pesticides. So, from both an environmental and economic standpoint, Bt GMOs are better than the conventional and organic alternatives.

Related posts

Literature Cited

  • Carrière 2003. Long-term regional suppression of pink bollworm by Bacillus thuringiensis cotton. Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Sciences 100:1519–1523.
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  • Shelton et al. 2002. Economic, ecological, food safety, and social consequences of the deployment of Bt transgenic plants. Annual Review of Entomology 47:845–881.
  • Siegfried and Hellmich 2012. Understanding successful resistance management: The European corn borer and Bt corn in the United States. GM Crops and Food 3:184–193.
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  • Wan et al. 2012. The halo effect: Suppression of pink bollowrn on non-Bt cotton by Bt cotton in China.
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  • Wolfenbarger et al. 2008. Bt Crop effects on functional guilds of non-target arthropods: a meta-analysis. PLoS ONE 3:e2118.
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Life constantly arises from “nonliving matter”

Posted on March 13, 2018 by Fallacy Man

Creationists often argue that scientists’ lack of knowledge about how the first cell arose is evidence that life could not have arisen “spontaneously from nonliving matter.” There are numerous problems with this argument, some of which I have dealt with before. For example, it is entirely an argument from ignorance fallacy (details here). Further, although it is often used as an argument “against evolution” it is actually an entirely separate concept from the theory of evolution, and the two theories do not rely on each other (details here). In this post, however, I want to focus on a different aspect of this argument. Namely, the fact that it isn’t actually true. Life arises spontaneously from “nonliving matter” all the time. Creationists simply frame the argument in a deceptive way that ignores the chemical nature of living organisms. Every time an organism reproduces, life is arising from nonliving matter. Now, creationists will, of course, object to that claim because that new life came from the reproduction of another living organism, but that is actually entirely irrelevant. As I will explain in detail, life itself is simply a product of highly complex chemistry, and the process of reproduction consists entirely of chemical reactions among nonliving atoms. The living organism simply provides the environment in which that chemistry can take place.

Definition of “spontaneous”

The first thing that we need to talk about in this discussion is the definition of “spontaneous.” In chemistry, spontaneous has a specific meaning. It gets a bit technical with concepts like entropy, but the easiest way to understand it is that a spontaneous reaction is exothermic (meaning that it releases energy into the environment), whereas a nonspontaneous reaction is endothermic (meaning that it requires energy from the environment). This is an oversimplification, but that is not really important for this post.

The definition used by chemists is not, however, generally what creationists mean when they talk about a “spontaneous” formation of life. Rather, they seem to mean simply an event that could happen naturally without conscious intervention. Although not technical, we can use this definition, but I think we need to carefully clarify it at the outset. By this definition, given the right environmental conditions (including temperature, enzymes, etc.) any chemical reaction is spontaneous. Imagine, for example, that I take a small salt crystal, and drop it into water. The salt will dissolve because the positive sodium ions will be attracted to the negative part of water molecules, while the negative chloride ions will be attracted to the positive part of water molecules (water is a polar molecule). That reaction is (by creationists’ definition) spontaneous. It is an inevitable outcome of the chemistry. No one has to sit there and will the molecules to interact with each other. They just do so automatically because of the way that charges, electrons, etc. behave. You might try to quibble over this example because it involved me (a conscious entity) dropping the salt into the water, but we can easily think of situations where the chemicals would meet without intervention (e.g., a cliff eroding into a lake).

This may seem straightforward so far, but it is critical to clarify that this definition of spontaneous must still apply even when we are talking about reactions that occur inside a living organism. Take photosynthesis, for example. Plants take in water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) and through a complex series of chemical reactions, they produce oxygen (O2) and glucose (C6H12O6). Various enzymes are involved, and the reaction is endothermic and requires energy from the sun. Thus, it is not spontaneous by the technical chemical definition, but it is spontaneous by the definition that creationists use when they say things like, “life can’t spontaneously arise.” In other words, it is an inevitable outcome of the chemistry in that environment. When you have those chemicals (including the various enzymes, etc.) plus an input of energy from the sun, the reaction will happen. No one has to force the individual atoms to interact.

Note: I will use this definition of spontaneous throughout.

Everything is nonliving matter

There is no such thing as living matter. The dichotomy between “living’ and “nonliving” matter is a completely false one that is perpetuated by the way that all of us (including scientists) talk, but it is a critical topic when it comes to abiogenesis, because creationists entire argument hinges on this false distinction between living and nonliving matter.

The problem here is that matter is never alive, but when it is arranged in certain ways, it results in chemical reactions that produce the property known as life. In other words, living organism are composed entirely of nonliving matter. You are, for example, predominantly composed of the elements oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. These are nonliving atoms that come together to form nonliving molecules. When those molecules are arranged in a certain way, they chemically react and produce a living cell, and those living cells collectively form a living organism (you). You are alive, and your cells are alive, but the matter that makes those cells is not alive. It’s just a specific arrangement of nonliving atoms.

This may seem like an entirely pointless semantic quibble, but it is actual vital for this discussion, because, since matter itself is not alive, all life, by definition, arises from nonliving matter. When you make a sperm or an egg cell, for example, nonliving matter is simply being arranged into a living cell. Yes, that arrangement is being performed by living cells, but they are themselves just arrangements of nonliving matter, and they are simply providing the chemicals (aka nonliving matter) and environment necessary for spontaneous chemical reactions to arrange the chemicals into a living cell. The matter is never alive at any point in the process.

Now, I can already hear the objection that a living cell is required for that to happen. In other words, this argument states that even though the matter itself is not alive, a living organism is required to arrange the nonliving matter into a living cell. As I will explain in subsequent sections, however, there is absolutely no reason to think that assertion is true.

This is about chemistry, not consciousness

Before I go any further, I need to make a brief comment about consciousness, because someone will inevitably respond to my assertion that life is simply a product of complex chemistry by arguing that “chemistry can’t explain consciousness.”

I want to respond to that in several ways. First, prove it. You are a biochemical machine. You breathe in oxygen, which is transported to your cells thanks to haemoglobin in your blood. That oxygen, as well as glucose from your food, is then used for a complex chemical reaction known as cellular respiration. This produces the molecule ATP which can be reduced to ADP, resulting in a release of energy. That degradation of ATP to ADP powers your body. Every function of your body is controlled by chemistry and reducible to chemistry. Even when you are thinking, that is a result of chemistry in your brain (neurotransmitters, sodium ion channels, etc.). Given all of that, there is no good reason to think that consciousness is not also just a product of complex chemistry.

Having said that, however, this topic is actually completely irrelevant to the argument about abiogenesis, and I would really rather just drop it altogether. So, to that end, I will focus on bacteria from here on out. I don’t know anyone who thinks that bacteria are conscious, so we can talk about them from an entirely chemical perspective, even if you think that consciousness is more than chemistry. Further, the first cell is thought to have been something similar to a cyanobacteria, so talking about bacteria is rational path.

Bacterial reproduction

Diagram of a bacterium. Image credit: Ali Zifan via Wikimedia

Now that we have agreed to focus on bacteria, let’s talk about how bacteria reproduce. Bacteria are very simple organisms and really only consist of a few major parts: a cell wall (made of the chemical peptidoglycan), DNA, proteins known as ribosomes, cytoplasm (the gooey fluid inside), and a few other bits and pieces. Again, all of those parts are made of nonliving matter, and are themselves nonliving, but when they are arranged correctly, and the correct chemical reactions occur, the cell as a whole exhibits the properties that we use to define life. In other words, ribosomes are not alive, the cell wall is not alive, DNA is not alive, etc., but when all of those things are put together and the correct chemical reactions occur, we describe the entire cell as being alive. Further, we would describe it as “dead” only if those chemical reactions ceased. Thus, biological life is defined by the occurrence of specific chemical reactions.

When a bacterium detects that the environment and resources are good for reproducing, a series of chemical reactions are triggered. Most importantly, the contents of the cell (DNA, ribosomes, enzymes, etc.) are duplicated. The DNA duplication involves a series of enzymes and chemical reactions that read the DNA strands and make identical copies. Again, this is a spontaneous chemical reaction that will occur anytime that the right chemicals are supplied under the right conditions.

Unlike the DNA, the proteins are duplicated by the ribosomes (which are themselves made of proteins). The ribosomes are protein factories. They receive blueprints from the DNA (in the form of mRNA) and building materials from the rest of the cell (in the form of tRNA), and they arrange those building materials according to the blue prints. Here again, this all happens because of inevitable chemical reactions (given the reactants and environment; see note at the end for more details on how proteins are made).

Diagram of protein synthesis. Image credit: Kelvinsong via Wikimedia

Hopefully at this point the picture is becoming clear. The entire process of forming a new cell is just a long string of chemical reactions. It is true that in nature, we have only observed this entire chain of reactions occurring in living cells, but that is just because the cell provides the right environment, conditions, and reactants for those reactions to take place. If the right conditions occurred outside of a cell those reactions would still happen. Imagine, for example, that we figured out how to artificially produce ribosomes, then put them in a beaker with the correct reactants, mRNA templates, enzymes, tRNA, energy input, etc. Would they form proteins? Yes. In fact, we have done essentially that. We have developed methods known as cell-free protein synthesis that allow you to produce the proteins for a given strand of DNA in a test tube without needing a living cell!

The significance of PCR

For most of the history of life on planet earth, DNA replication only happened in one place: a living cell. During human history, DNA didn’t spontaneously replicate in nonliving environments. Just like the production of proteins and the other steps involved in making a new cell, DNA replication required a living cell. DNA replication is, however, just chemistry (just like the other steps of making a new cell), and scientists saw no reason why it shouldn’t be possible to replicate DNA if the right conditions were created outside of a cell. So, they began studying the chemistry, and after years of work, they figured it out, ultimately resulting in the polymerase change reaction (PCR).

If you ever take even an introductory course on genetics, you’ll almost certainly have to do a PCR reaction, because it is one of the most common tools in laboratories around the world (a substantial amount of my life has been spent running these reactions). To do PCR, you take a strand of DNA that you want to replicate, add the necessary chemicals (enzymes, bases, primers, etc.), put the mixture into a thermocycler that creates the correct temperature profile for the reaction to occur (i.e., the environment), and lo and behold, you replicate DNA without needing a living cell.

Why is that possible? Why is it possible to take a process that, in nature, requires a living cell, and do it without a living cell? Because the process is entirely chemical! Again, the cell just provides the environment necessary for that reaction to occur, but if you can replicate a suitable environment outside of a cell, then you can do the same reaction. Further, there is absolutely no reason to think that this only applies to DNA replication. Every step involved in making a cell is just a series of chemical reactions, and there is absolutely no reason why a living cell should be the only environment in which those reactions are possible.

Additionally, it is important to remember that the series of reactions that occur in living cells today are more complicated than would be necessary to form a rudimentary cell. Indeed, scientists are actively studying chemical reactions that can produce primitive versions of various cellular components without requiring a living cell.

Bringing it all together

Let’s recap, shall we? Matter itself is not living. Rather, when nonliving chemicals are arranged together and react in certain ways, they produce living organisms that consist of nonliving matter. Further, the processes and actions of these living organisms are simply the result of complex chemical reactions. Additionally, these chemical reactions occur “spontaneously” in that they will occur on their own given the right chemicals in the right environment. Indeed, all living organisms are accurately described as biochemical machines, with these “spontaneous” reactions driving their functions.

As a result of all of this, it is completely fair to say that life constantly arises from nonliving matter, because each new cell is formed by arranging nonliving matter into a configuration that will result in the chemical reactions that produce the properties that we describe as life. It is true that currently these reactions do not occur in nature outside of a cell. In other words, each new cell is formed by existing cells; however, because that formation process is entirely chemical, there is no reason to think that those chemical reactions could not occur elsewhere. To put that another way, living cells simply provide the right environment and resources for those reactions to occur, but if the right environment occurred outside of a cell, those reactions would still occur even in the absence of a cell. Indeed, we have clearly demonstrated this by replicating a key component of cellular reproduction (i.e., DNA replication) in the lab. Further, it is likely that the environment on planet earth billions of years ago would have also been conducive to these types of reactions.

In short, there is absolutely no reason to think that life couldn’t form “spontaneously from nonliving matter,” because matter is never alive, and the formation of life is nothing more than a complex series of chemical reactions.

Note: Someone is probably getting ready to point out that although PCR replicates DNA, it is not exactly the same reaction used by living cells. That is true, but completely irrelevant. There are lots of different variants of the DNA replication process found in nature, and it is entirely possible the first cells used mechanisms that were different from those of current cells. So, all that matters is that we were able to replicate DNA in the lab. In other words, the point is simply that a living cell is not required for that task to be accomplished. The end product is what matters, not the mechanism through which it happened.

More details on protein synthesis: The process here is complicated, but the simplest way to explain it is like this. DNA is a chemical molecule, and the four bases of DNA (ATCG) are four different chemical molecules. When the cell sends blue prints to the ribosome, it translates the DNA into mRNA, which also consists of four bases (AUCG; mRNA is a single-stranded complimentary copy of the DNA strand with T replaced with U). The bases on mRNA are arranged into sets of three, known as codons, and each codon codes for a specific amino acid. Once this strand of mRNA is in the ribosome, it will react with tRNA, which consists of anticodons attached to an amino acid. The anticodon is the compliment of the codon, and, because of the chemistry, anticodons (and, as a result, the amino acids they carry) are specific to specific codons. Thus, each anticodon reacts with a specific codon, ultimately resulting in its amino acid getting added to the amino acid from the previous anticodon. In other words, the ribosome matches the codons with the correct amino acid, resulting in reactions that bind the amino acids together into chains, and those chains fold to form proteins. I realize that may sound like the ribosome is a conscious entity that is consciously deciding how to do this, but it is not. All of this is 100% chemistry. In the presence of the right enzymes, chemical reactions will occur with the codons, anticodons, ribosome, amino acids, etc., ultimately causing the amino acids to string together in a certain order that is dictated by the chemistry of the RNA, which is in turn dictated by the chemistry of the DNA.

 Related post
Abiogenesis: An unsolved mystery is not evidence of a creator

Posted in Science of Evolution | Tagged , | 24 Comments