The undirected neo-Darwinian "evolution" of the first living organism has just become even very much more unlikely than it was before.
A new study (described at https://evolutionnews.org/2024/08/that-i...600-genes/) has shown that the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) of all living organisms was very complex, including a genome of at least 2.5 Mb (2.49–2.99 Mb), encoding around 2,600 proteins, comparable to modern prokaryote bacteria, and came about very early, around 4.2 billion years ago. This dating leaves very little time , a few hundred million years, for the Darwinistic RM+NS evolution of this very complexly organized LUCA just after the final heavy bombardment epoch beginning Earth's history.
This hypothesized earliest living organism was more sophisticated than previously known. It even had an immune system that fought viruses and there is evidence suggesting it lived at the ocean's surface and contained genes to protect against ultraviolet damage.
A new study (described at https://evolutionnews.org/2024/08/that-i...600-genes/) has shown that the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) of all living organisms was very complex, including a genome of at least 2.5 Mb (2.49–2.99 Mb), encoding around 2,600 proteins, comparable to modern prokaryote bacteria, and came about very early, around 4.2 billion years ago. This dating leaves very little time , a few hundred million years, for the Darwinistic RM+NS evolution of this very complexly organized LUCA just after the final heavy bombardment epoch beginning Earth's history.
This hypothesized earliest living organism was more sophisticated than previously known. It even had an immune system that fought viruses and there is evidence suggesting it lived at the ocean's surface and contained genes to protect against ultraviolet damage.
Quote:"Would a much simpler cell be viable? To think so pushes the envelope of plausibility. If it would be viable, someone needs to explain how such a defenseless life could survive to reproduce. If it wouldn’t, the strong suggestion is of life springing from non-life without a far simpler yet viable transitional state.
Transitions like that, including very rapid ones, are a hallmark of human-devised technology. In the context of the early Earth, it sounds like the act of a creative agent, existing before the first cell came to be. In other words, it sounds like intelligent design."
![[-]](https://psiencequest.net/forums/images/collapse.png)