|
|
Nick Lane, Gifford lecture 2026
|
Evolutionary biochemist and author Nick Lane for the first time
unequivocally rejected DNA- and gene-centric thinking in his Gifford
Lecture on 8 Sep 2026.
|
|
The paramount position of genes in biology. [8:54]
|
In his previous public lectures he promoted the metabolism-first point of
view and casually dismissed DNA-centric thinking. Now he started his
lecture with a clear rejection of DNA-centric thinking. Since I have
been blogging several times about DNA- and gene-centric thinking, I want to bring this lecture to the attention of my regular blog
readers.
|
|
Are genes a good guide to life on Earth? [21:39]
|
I highly recommend this lecture especially for those who never watched a
lecture of Nick Lane. This lecture is now the most up-to-date version of
his scientific position. Lane is a scientist with original ideas and is
not afraid to tackle the most intractable problems in evolution and the
origin of life. He doesn't hesitate to confront some mainstream ideas in
evolutionary biology. Refreshingly, he adds that his ideas might be wrong!
Moreover, he is an excellent popularizer of science. His lectures continue
to broaden and sharpen my understanding.
|
|
The chemistry is older than genes [52:45]
|
The latest evidence shows that Bacteria and Archaea are
significantly different in their genetics, but share the same chemistry.
The genes and enzymes that katalyse the biochemical reactions are not the
same [1]. So this is spontaneous chemistry. Again, this is an argument for
the primacy of chemistry and metabolism. Genes and enzymes arise later
[2].
In the last 10 minutes Lane answers questions. He points out why the
mainstream RNA-world hypothesis for the Origin of Life fails. It is a
dead end. You end up with very fast replicating RNA molecules but
nothing more than that. No cells. No life. The right chemistry starts
with CO2.
In my next blog I will continue with new
arguments against mainstream DNA-centric thinking.
Source
Youtube
8 Sep 2026.
Postscript 20 Sep 2026
|
|
Nick Lane (2014) [3]
|
In the above figure Nick Lane shows how Archaea and Bacteria originated
from LUCA. However, the problem is that LUCA is equipped with ATPases and
SPAPs. These are enzymes! That implies a genetic system (DNA), with
a genetic code, transcription, translation, ribosomes! What we see in this
figure, then, is not the origin of life. LUCA has a long history ending in
a cell with DNA and proteins. That history is presumed, not explained.
That history is called the origin of life. All this stands in a remarkable
contrast with his 'metabolism-first, genes later' philosophy as explained
in his lecture (above). The irony of the matter is that Lane rejects
'genes first' theory, but in this publication LUCA is equipped with genes
and enzymes! Furthermore, I ponted the problem out in a blog two years
earlier [4].
Notes
-
However, other sources maintain that "Many genes that handle basic chemical reactions, energy production, and
amino acid synthesis are common to both domains", but "genes for DNA replication, transcription, and translation
are vastly different in Bacteria."
-
Amazingly, "Genes and enzymes arise later" is Ganti's Chemoton
model back in 1971! (my
review
on my WDW website, see for example note 26).
-
The figure is from:
A Leaky Membrane and a Sodium Transporter at Life’s Great
Divergence, 2014. With thanks to Marleen, who discussed the publication in a
blog
she wrote in 2014. [20 Sep 2026]
-
New origin of life model fatally requires a nonrandom protein, 24 Dec 2012 [20 Sep 2026]
Further Reading
Continue reading...
Gert, thanks for this recommendation. And again arguments against the gene-centric view.
ReplyDeleteThe metabolism-first view reminds me of the book The emergence of everything by Harold Morowitz (2002). He was a prominent promotor of the "Metabolism-First" hypothesis, arguing that life's origin began with a network of self-sustaining chemical reactions rather than information-carrying molecules like RNA. He summarized this philosophy with his famous dictum: "Metabolism recapitulates biogenesis." And adenine is at the centre of his hypothesis.
I am going to watch the YouTibe video of Nick Lane in the coming day(s)".
Hi Rolie. I watched the video in two days. Nick Lane is a very good teacher. I have read the paperback The emergence of everything of Harold Morowitz in 2004. (I see this from many annotations and notes in my copy!). Morowitz is of the Metabolism First school of thought; Because all modern life uses very similar basic metabolic pathways, those pathways likely started in pre-life chemistry. This is indeed exactly Nick Lane. So, thanks for bringing this up. I have added a separate entry for this book on my Introduction page of my website. I will add more info. So, thanks again. I see that I have classified Morowitz as a 'theistic evolutionist' on that page. Further, I see on the wikipedia page that In 1981, he testified at "McLean v. Arkansas" ("Scopes II") that creationism has no scientific basis and so should not be taught as science in public schools.
ReplyDeleteIk zie geen adres voor de video.
ReplyDeleteVermoedelijk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WatgWy8Z1s ,
Hoe krijg ik automatische nasynchronisatie weg?
Hoi Gerdien, I have introduced a Read more... button in my blogs to prevent 'Follow it' to mail to complete contents of the blog to subscribers.
ReplyDeleteUnder the fold is more text and Notes and Resources. So click the 'Read more' button and you see the rest.
"Automatisch nagesynchroniseerd" heeft dit geval geen effect (bij mij) omdat je gewoon de originele stem van Lane hoort zonder dat ik iets gedaan heb aan instellingen. Mocht je toch een computerstem horen, dan kun je via het tandwieltje rechtsonder in Youtbe de instellingen 'Audiotrack' wijzigen in: 'Origneel Engels'.
I watched the video in two sessions. Nick Lane gave a very good presentation. The section on the origin of life was too brief for me to understand it well. He had already spent a lot of time on the historical introduction, leaving less time for the final part.
ReplyDeleteI cannot really judge whether his approach is plausible. However, I do wonder if he isn't too optimistic about the formation of carboxylic acids (time point 1:05 to 1:08)—as if CO2 and H could that easily be combined into such compounds. If that were the case, surely we would have the solution to recycle the excess of CO2 in the atmosphere into fuels?
https://youtu.be/9WatgWy8Z1s?t=3881
ReplyDelete...difficult to do it at a lab bench, but we are not 3000 bar pressure down at the bottom of the ocean...
Could it be that it is difficult to reproduce because of the lack of the immense pressure required?
However, I found that 3,000 bar (approx. 43,500 psi) of pressure can be simulated and physically generated within industrial testing systems, so why doesn't he use such a system for his experiments?
Dear Gert,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this wonderful lecture. I watched and listened to it with great pleasure and attention.
Nick Lane is so clear in his explanations, and he is so pleasant to listen to, that two hours are simply not enough. By the way, I also think Richard Dawkins writes, presents, and reasons incredibly well.
Every era has its own perspective, and Dawkins' idea seems to have faded. The centrality of the gene has had its day. Lane mentions that when he finished reading The Selfish Gene, he thought it was a beautiful book, but the idea of merely being a vehicle for genes sat very poorly with him. I felt the same way, but later, once you let it sink in a bit, it provides a beautiful concept of your ancestors, tracing the entire history of life back through time.
As far as I am concerned, the core of Lane's story revolves around the pores in the rock and the sediments of hydrothermal vents. These formed tiny compartments for the first lipids, which in turn organized leaky membranes. In his earlier work, he drew ATPases inside these leaky membranes. (I blogged about it). Even after watching this video, it is still not clear to me where those actually come from. I think I might just have to listen to it once more.
Did you read his latest book ‘Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death’? I might buy it even though it mainly treats the Krebs cycle.
Thank you again
Thanks Marleen, you write so beautiful English.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote "The centrality of the gene has had its day." What I see in the mainstream scientific literature is DNA-centric thinking everywhere. That is not exclusively evolution, but all subfields of biology including medical sciences.
Furthermore, it is important to distinguish the Origin of Life field and general biology. According to Nick Lane DNA/RNA centirc thinking prevents a solution to the Origin of Life problem. He didn't say anything about DNA-centrism in general biology, but he could accept a lot there.
You wrote "The centrality of the gene has had its day":
evolution is always based on inherited variation; DNA mutations. Evolution without DNA is impossible. That's why DNA is still central in evolution theory.
I am now preparing a blog with examples of 'cell-centric data' in the mainstream literature. These are the exceptions. DNA-centric thinking is still mainstream: just see the table of Contents of Science and Nature...
You wrote: "In his earlier work, he drew ATPases inside these leaky membranes."
Really?! Could you give me the url of that blogpost?
ATPase is an enzyme = protein = encoded by DNA! however: there are no enzymes and no DNA at hydrothermal vents! not at the Origin of Life! only later when the genetic code evolved!
Did you read his latest book ‘Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death’? Yes, and I blogged about it. In stead of reading the book you could watch an interview with Lane about the book. Just let me know.
You are right that DNA holds a central place in evolution, and so do proteins. But I thought I understood from your previous blogs that according to the current literature in biology and within a cell, everything revolves around genes, whereas you were of the opinion that there are many more essential things at play in a cell that make it live, and that the emphasis was too much on genes. Nick Lane's lecture shows that this is also the case in the origin of the first life.
ReplyDeleteI have dedicated a lot of blog posts to Nick Lane. The post I referred to however, is the following: https://ascendenza.wordpress.com/2014/08/13/de-eerste-ionenpompen-en-de-oorsprong-van-leven/
(You commented also under the blogpost)
For the rest of my comment I start a new one, since there is a second link in it and sometimes comments with two links are blocked.
The article by Nick Lane's group on which the blog post is based is the following: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001926
ReplyDeleteSee especially figure 2 and figure 7. You can see there that he has long held the idea that leaky membranes must have existed in the pores of the wall of the hydrothermal vent, and that these formed a step in the development of the first cells. These are models in which he also includes the proton pump with ATP production.
Thank you for helping me with the link to the video. I think I found it. Thank you all the same.
Marleen, thanks for the links to your blog and the article.
ReplyDeleteIk heb met verbazing mijn reactie van september 8, 2014 om 09:42 onder jouw blog gelezen!
https://ascendenza.wordpress.com/2014/08/13/de-eerste-ionenpompen-en-de-oorsprong-van-leven/#comment-6962
Ik heb 12 jaar later nog steeds hetzelfde bezwaar: de figuur met de evolutie van Archaea en Bacteria uit LUCA laat helemaal niet het ontstaan van het leven zien! LUCA heeft al een DNA-protein systeem compleet met een genetisch code! Het ontstaan van zo'n systeem wordt helemaal niet verklaard, maar gewoonweg verondersteld! Schokkend! Het ontstaan van LUCA wordt helemaal niet verklaard! Lane veronderstelt wat hij moet verklaren! Hij begint met LUCA! LUCA zit in een hydrothermal vent op de bodem van de oceaan!
ATPase is een uiterst complex systeem met een rotary motor dat voor de Intelligent Design beweging een bewijs van ontwerp door God is. En in de figuur van Lane zijn er twee ingetekend: ATPase en SPAP!
In zijn laatste lezing was Lane van mening 'metabolism-first, genes later'!
Maar LUCA had al een systeem dat complexe eitwitten kan produceren! en hoe kan dat anders dan met DNA?
Nick Lane is wel degelijk van mening dat het leven ontstaan is in hydrothermal vents:
The Origin of Life in Alkaline Hydrothermal Vents, 2016.
Another problem is: organisms at the bottom of the ocean are adapted to prevent imploding under crushing ocean pressures. So LUCA also must have had these very specific deep sea adaptations!
Kort gezegd begrijp ik het volgende: het verschil in pH (het gradiënt in protonen) in de hydrothermale bronnen (tussen met elkaar in verbinding staande microporiën) komt overeen met dat van wat gebruikelijk is in het leven, of tenminste in de bacteriën en archaea. Hoe dit tot de reductie van koolstofdioxide heeft kunnen leiden is niet bekend (in 2016).
ReplyDeleteIk zou het allemaal opnieuw moeten bestuderen.
Waarschijnlijk probeerde Nick Lane in dat bewuste artikel waarover ik blogde te laten zien hoe het leven in de hydrothermale bronnen tot stand had kunnen komen, zonder rekening te houden met waar de code voor die eiwitten vandaan kwam. Het artikel waar ik over blogde had namelijk de titel: A Bioenergetic Basis for Membrane Divergence in Archaea and Bacteria. Het ging dus niet echt over LUCA en het ontstaan van leven of het ontstaan van metabolisme.
Nick Lane gelooft in zijn hypothese. Hij zegt erbij dat hij het fout kan hebben. Het is echter wel een heel plausibel verhaal en ik geloof ook dat hij gelijk heeft.
Waarschijnlijk hebben de eerste cellen op de oceaanbodem zich aangepast aan de hoge druk. Sowieso heeft een cel er minder last van dan een groter organisme, omdat de cel nauwelijks tot geen zuurstof bevat, waardoor ze zou kunnen pletten.
Marleen, dat artikel geeft inderdaad een hypothese over het ontstaan van Archaea and Bacteria en hun opvallende verschillen en overeenkomsten.
ReplyDeleteMaar afgezien daarvan zijn er vele problemen.
LUCA staat onder in het schema als voorouder van Archaea and Bacteria, en heeft twee complexe eiwitten ATPase en SPAP. Die moeten ontstaan door mutatie en natuurlijke selectie in een DNA-protein-world.
MAAR: dit impliceert celdeling! Zonder celdeling is er geen erfelijke variatie en kan natuurlijkse selectie niets. Het probleem is dat celdeling onmogelijk is als LUCA in poreus gesteente vast zit ingebet en helemaal niet zelfstandig is. Celdeling kan volgens mij alleen bij vrij levende zelfstandige cellen... en dat is pas veel later als de cellen loskomen uit hydrothermal vent.
Wat denk jij hier van? Zie ik iets over het hoofd?
Translation of previous comment:
ReplyDeleteThe presumed presence of the proteins ATPase en SPAP in LUCA presuppose reproduction and the selection of fitter genetic variants in a DNA-protein world. This, in turn, presupposes cell division. Cell divsion is hard to imagine if the proto-cells are embedded and locked in a geological substrate, and don't have their own cell membrane.
Gert, je schrijft: er zijn veel problemen met de aanname van LUCA als eerste celtype.
ReplyDeleteAls LUCA een inderdaad een celtype was dat zich kon delen en bouwinformatie (van ATP en andere eiwitten) kon doorgeven dan moet daarvoor een heel (complex en onbekend) proces van ontwikkeling liggen, tenminste als LUCA een nazaat is van de bolvormige micellen inclusief een vorm van metabolisme, zoals ik uit Nick Lane zijn theorie opmaak. Maar misschien begrijp ik het verkeerd.
Gert en Rolie, als je de Nederlandse Wikipedia er op naleest, is het maar net op welk niveau van ontwikkeling je de LUCA plaatst. Volgens een vrij recent artikel zou LUCA een genoom van 2,5 megabytes gehad hebben dat codeerde voor 2.600 proteïnen.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-024-02461-1
Het metabolisme eerst-verhaal zoekt naar een tijdsverband tussen de microporiën met micellen en de LUCA. LUCA is dan, in de visie van NIck Lane, het eindpunt van de evolutie van het metabolisme. Daarna komt de vorming van het RNA en het DNA op gang. Het is echter niet ondenkbaar dat de lekkende membranen ervoor zorgden dat niet alleen het metabolisme een start maakte, maar dat tegelijkertijd ook de traditionele RNA moleculen en misschien zelfs het DNA in de micellen vormden. Deze kunnen niet makkelijk de micellen verlaten omdat ze te groot zijn. Ze hopen zich daar op, bereiken een grote dichtheid en repliceren. Volgens Forterre bevatten de eerste cellen RNA. Deze zouden geïnfecteerd zijn met DNA-virussen, waarna de cellen DNA bevatten.
Deze micellen met inhoud of cellen kunnen zich in de microporiën niet delen. Het is misschien mogelijk dat de cellen in de microporiën uitstulpels maakten in plaats van een echte deling of mitose en zo nieuwe micellen het omringende zeewater in stuurden. Net zoals er bellen geblazen worden.
Rolie, Marleen, thanks for your comments. I think I have to go back to the basics and reread old publications and books again. I have to rethink the origin of life theories, I always imagined it happening at a room temperature with normal-moderate water pressures. But now I have to adapt my thinking to extreme temperatures (40°C to 90°C; 104°F to 194°F) and water pressures at deep-sea alkaline hydrothermal vents 4 billion years ago were likely several hundred times greater than Earth's surface atmospheric pressure. Such an environment must be very hostile. I always imagined first life must be fragile, vulnarable, easily damaged. Now I am expected to believe that it was very robust. How could first life arise in such a hostile environment? If LUCA arose in hydrothermal vents, and had 2600 genes and proteins: how could they be stable in such an environment? LUCA must be an extremophile: all genes and proteins must be adapted to an extremephile environment: sophisticated DNA and protein Stabilizing Adaptations. That are really demanding requirements! I my view conditions for the origin of life must be bio-friendly; not requiring sophisticated adaptations. But LUCA must have a completely different genome and metabolism than today's organisms at the surfuace of the earth.
ReplyDeleteGert and Marleen, I don't know very much about origin of life scenarios, but circumstances with T = 40 - 90 C and p = 100 bar is not per se hostile.
ReplyDeleteOur own body temp. 37 C, ksn't it? Proteins may degrade above 60 C, but others can stand higher temp. And external pressure is hard to tackle only when the internal pressure of a micelle is low, which is not necessarly the case for a micelle deep in teh ocean. It is a problem for you and me because our internal pressure is adapted to 1 bar.
Reactions like those Nick Lane describes favour high internal pressures.
Rolie, these topics are outside my unassuming expertise, and I have no first-hand experience of deepsea alkaline hydrothermal vents. So, I have to google a lot.
ReplyDeleteFor example this pub in the journal Extremophile!s:
Microbial diversity and adaptation to high hydrostatic pressure in deep-sea hydrothermal vents prokaryotes, and:
Barophiles: deep-sea microorganisms adapted to an extreme environment,
you can find many more. Again and again I encouter deepsea adapatations...
By the way: I hope you will never experience a body temp above 40°C :-)
A 41°C (105.8°F) fever can be life-threatening and requires immediate medical care :-(
Gert and Rolie,
ReplyDeleteIf Nick Lane is correct and life originated in hydrothermal vents, it is to be expected that life that emerged there could withstand all its extremes. The micropores initially absorbed the high pressure. And a micelle likely has just as high a pressure on the inside as there is on the outside.
In thermophilic archaea exists a reverse gyrase that overwinds the DNA or introduces positive supercoils into it. These twist in the same direction as the helix, thereby preventing DNA denaturation at high temperatures. There must have been plenty of time during the first billion years to refine this kind of adaptation. Actually lots of characteristics are not adaptations since the first cells just grew in their own habitat from the start so they didn’t have to adapt.
Probably a living cell only experiences osmotic pressure. For example if it is put into fresh water (tap water), it will explode.
DeleteRolie & Marleen, if I understand you correctly, there is no problem with pressure since the pressure inside the 'cell' is the same is outside the 'cell'? And this holds also when LUCA became free living?
ReplyDeleteSorry, computer says NO....!
The opposite must also be true: surface prokaryotes could easily live in deepsea environment because the inside pressure is the same as the outside pressure. Agree?
See: piezophile or barophile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezophile
Gert, I think you make a mistake. LUCA is a theoretical reconstruction of the first cell going down along trees of genes. Nick Lane is talking about first signs of life in hydrothermal vents (high temp and high pressure). These first micelles have no DNA etc. So there are long paths (certainly more than one) between this start-up and LUCA.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to equate them.
Since LUCA is based on genetic analysis there is no way to go before it. And therefore, about that period we cannot talk about evolution in the regular sense of the word, because there were no genotypes resulting in fenotypes interacting with enviromental conditions.
Rolie, I agree 100% that LUCA is a theoretical reconstruction. It is necessarily a theoretical reconstruction. LUCA left no direct traces.
ReplyDeleteHowever, see the second figure in:
https://ascendenza.wordpress.com/2014/08/13/de-eerste-ionenpompen-en-de-oorsprong-van-leven/
you see clearly that LUCA is placed in its geological context: a hydrothermal vent!
(That illustration is not from Lane, but from Richard Robinson, he added the names. )
The same figure but without names in it is in Lane (2014):
A Bioenergetic Basis for Membrane Divergence in Archaea and Bacteria, Figure 7.
Please have a look at that figure. and you see that LUCA is placed in a hydrothermal vent!
About your last remark: it is estimated that LUCA had about 2600 (protein encoding) genes. The question is indeed: how did it get those 2600 genes?
Gert, in her blog Marleen described interesting things, which in my eyes are very hypthetical.
ReplyDeleteDespite all given ideas there is a huge gap between the micelles (wth some organic molecules) assumend by Nick Lane and the LUCA (with DNA and the apparatus to read it, etc.). In DNA of present organisms we can find fossile remains of earlier life forms, but what information is know about the period before the "first" DNA?
So, the whole trajectory of processess between the first organic molecules and LUCA is unknown and - as far as I can see - we can not get information about this phase of life. May be we can gain some insight by building a cell from scratch??
Rolie asked "but what information is know about the period before the "first" DNA?"
ReplyDeleteThere are no fossils of the Origin of Life. The Origin of Life field is a field of trying to find the most likely reconstruction of what could have happened based upon what are the known properties of life, the biochemistry and geochemistry of the early earth. For example: first life must be anaerobic, etc. Never can a hypothesis about the Origin of Life be proved. The best hypothesis is the one that makes sense of the properties of life, does not contradict known facts, and has the fewest gaps.
[ If this sounds disappointing, consider the origin of the universe (the Big Bang): can a hypothesis be proven true, or is it simply the best hypothesis?]
-> building a cell from scratch: is called the 'minimal cell'. An example is: SpudCell.
PS: there are some hundred books about the subject and thousands of scientific publications...
:-)
What I was trying to emphasize earlier in my reactions is that the first cells—for instance, those whose membranes were still leaky, but also the first complete cells—originated in an environment of high pressure and temperature. Their origin were the hydrothermal vents so they are naturally perfectly suited for life under these harsh conditions. They didn’t have to adapt, they were suited for this environment. There are certainly ideas, or hypotheses, about what those adaptations actually consisted of (which weren't really adaptations, but simply how the cells were when they first emerged). Building cells completely from scratch is an interesting study, but building a cell that possessed the characteristics—like LUCA—that allowed it to live in a hydrothermal vent will not be easy.
ReplyDeleteThe Spudcell is interesting; I hadn't heard of it yet. Cees Dekker also announced that he wanted to build a cell, but I don't know how far along that project is.
Marleen, thanks for your comment. Let's accept your point about 'adaptation' of the first hydrothemral vent cells for the sake of argument. Then it follows that when those cells leave the hydrothermal vent system they are in a completely different environment. It is an independent, free living lifestyle, they are free cells now, and they have to adapt to that new environment to survive and thrive! So, a lot has to change: get their own food and energy sources, do cell divisions for the first time.
ReplyDeleteAbout Cees Dekker see my blog:
Prof. Cees Dekker: "Ik geloof dat de wonderen in de bijbel echt gebeurd zijn."