Abiogenesis is the Scientific God

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Darwinists say that their dogma does not include how life supposedly came from non-life, billions of years ago, "plenty of time," which enables them to hide from the God question, what a surprise, it's the ol' shell game.

So the Darwinists tell us it's abiogenesis, saying "it's out of our perview, so move along," how conveeeeenient, but abiogenesis has no basis in scientific reality, they've made a few amino acids, but that is hardly life, they haven't even come close, so "abiogenesis" is the Darwinists' code word for the Scientific God, a way to avoid the historical God of the Bible, such desperation.

So why is the Scientific God more believable than the God of the Bible, who was worshipped in China 4,000 years ago as Shang Ti?

[S.A.M.]

Science searches for naturalistic causes, not supernatural ones.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

But to say that they've come ANYWHERE CLOSE is preposterous.

[spidergoat]

It's a much more reasonable proposition than "a magic man did it".

[spidergoat]

Did you ever think that God knew naturalistic causes originating in the Big Bang would lead to life? It's possible.

[VitalOne]

I agree with you on this IAC,

Neo-Darwinists usually say that abiogenesis, panspermia, and anything about the origin of life has absolutely nothing to do with evolution per say. This is ofcourse only partially true, although it doesn't have anything to do with a change in species over time (evolution) it does have a lot to do with how we got here, since it is about the origins of life itself.

The simplest forms of life, like bacteria all have DNA, and complex molecular machines within them. DNA is the most condensed form of information in the known universe, the molecular machines within cells read this genetic information, interpret this information, translate this information, and carry out instructions based upon this complex genetic information. There are also many other molecular machines within cells with certain tasks. It is now found that you can reprogram bacteria in a similar way that you would reprogram a software program. During the times of Darwin, this was not known. Darwin and others thought of the simplest forms of life as nothing more than simple chemical reactions with no real order, design, or DNA.

Its been more than 50 years (since 1953) and there is no known undirected naturalistic cause for this overly complex seemingly designed system in the simplest forms of life. The only logical conclusions are that either the naturalistic cause is unknown, or that there is some intelligent cause. Just in the sameway you would conclude that Stonehenge or the Great Pyramids were not the products of an undirected naturalistic cause, but an intelligent cause, in the sameway you conclude that these molecular machines, genetic information, etc...are the results of an intelligent cause. Saying that these molecular machines just happened to form by chance (abiogenesis) is foolish, and there is no evidence to support this notion at all.

So basically to explain the origins of life, atheists and others just go with the "nature-did-it" explanation..."some how some way, by some unknown means nature just did it, and there is absolutely no chance that there was some intelligent cause for something with innumerable design features of which have no naturalistic explanation"

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Yes, those pesky design features.

And if Darwinism is true, all life forms should be just a huge amalgam of "transitional forms," afterall, "everything is evolving ala Darwin all the time," so there should be no distinct kinds of animals, just a long line of "transitional forms."

[Cris]

Vitalone,

Saying that these molecular machines just happened to form by chance (abiogenesis) is foolish, and there is no evidence to support this notion at all.Do you have any evidence or precedent for anything that was created outside of an evolutionary process to justify your speculation?

In other words I challenge you to demonstrate that anything has ever been created by an inteligence and not by an evolutionary process.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

There is no hard proof of either.

[VitalOne]

Vitalone,

Do you have any evidence or precedent for anything that was created outside of an evolutionary process to justify your speculation?
What do you mean? What type of evidence would indicate that something was created outside of an evolutionary process? I know nothing would, therefore you are using the typical atheist's logic, ask for evidence you know is impossible gather, then use it in your favor.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Since there is no evidence for abiogenesis, why teach it as the only possibility for the origin of life?

It's like saying "we don't know that it happened this way, but it happened this way."

[spidergoat]

Yes, those pesky design features.

And if Darwinism is true, all life forms should be just a huge amalgam of "transitional forms," afterall, "everything is evolving ala Darwin all the time," so there should be no distinct kinds of animals, just a long line of "transitional forms."

That is true. Every single life form is a unique prototype.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Cows are cows, gators are gators, snails are snails, where's the transition?

[spidergoat]

Species is a meaningless term, that's what you said.

Is there an alternative hypothesis for the origin of life? Are you willing to subject this hypothesis to the same kind of testing?

[Cris]

Vitalone,

What do you mean? What type of evidence would indicate that something was created outside of an evolutionary process? I know nothing would, therefore you are using the typical atheist's logic, ask for evidence you know is impossible gather, then use it in your favor.The gist of your argument is that complexity requires a designer. This is your claim - so what is your evidence? I'm not twisting anything around.

[Cris]

Iceage,

There is no hard proof of either.So why do religionists insist life was created?

[IceAgeCivilizations]

There is no proof either way, so why act like you know which way it was?

[VitalOne]

Vitalone,

The gist of your argument is that complexity requires a designer. This is your claim - so what is your evidence? I'm not twisting anything around.

The evidence is all the design features in cells that cannot be explained by an undirected naturalistic cause. When you have information like this its always traced back to an intelligent cause. This is the evidence. Just like how it is not logical to explain the Great Pyramids or Stonehenge as the products of an undirected naturalistic cause, it is only logical to explain them as the results of an intelligent cause (a designer or some intelligent cause). Science cannot determine who or what this intelligent cause is and it is thus fully open to interpretation.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Great post VitalOne.

[Cris]

Iceage,

Since there is no evidence for abiogenesis, why teach it as the only possibility for the origin of life.It's a hypothesis, do you have anything better?

It's like saying "we don't know that it happened this way, but it happened this way."Except that science doesn't say anything like that.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

It certainly does, scientists have no idea how life came to be.

[spidergoat]

The evidence is all the design features in cells that cannot be explained by an undirected naturalistic cause. When you have information like this its always traced back to an intelligent cause. This is the evidence. Just like how it is not logical to explain the Great Pyramids or Stonehenge as the products of an undirected naturalistic cause, it is only logical to explain them as the results of an intelligent cause (a designer or some intelligent cause). Science cannot determine who or what this intelligent cause is and it is thus fully open to interpretation.

That is why science separates abiogenesis and evolution. Once a process of coding and replication starts, evolution and natural selection explains the origin of cellular structures. In fact, designed things such as those designed by humans, have very different characteristics than things that evolved.

Science has a very good track record of discovering the naturalistic causes of phenomenon. Just one look at the past sucesses of science should show that it is a better way of explaining things than relying on an ancient holy book. Science has discovered much of the workings of the atom, it has harnessed the power of electricity, it has eliminated some diseases. It has disproved religious ideas like the sun revolving around the Earth, the genetic causes of some diseases (rather than demons). Religion has a very poor record in this area. ID is just an example of desperation on the part of those who see their cherished beliefs slipping away.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Many Christians got those breakthroughs going, so what's your point?

[VitalOne]

That is why science separates abiogenesis and evolution. Once a process of coding and replication starts, evolution and natural selection explains the origin of cellular structures. In fact, designed things such as those designed by humans, have very different characteristics than things that evolved.

Science has a very good track record of discovering the naturalistic causes of phenomenon. Just one look at the past sucesses of science should show that it is a better way of explaining things than relying on an ancient holy book. Science has discovered much of the workings of the atom, it has harnessed the power of electricity, it has eliminated some diseases. It has disproved religious ideas like the sun revolving around the Earth, the genetic causes of some diseases (rather than demons). Religion has a very poor record in this area. ID is just an example of desperation on the part of those who see their cherished beliefs slipping away.
This post said nothing to discredit ID at all, not even to the slightest, most remote extent. ID really has nothing to do with religion, it just has religious implications. Just like evolution may have nothing to do with atheism, but it has atheistic implications.

Basically your evidence is that science has disproven a lot of things believed to be true in the past by religion, so "nature-did-it". All you do is really avoid the question by seperating evolution and abiogenesis. Evolution relies on abiogenesis and it has a lot to with life...Doesn't it seem a bit strange to you all that embedded within each of your cells is genetic information or data that contains all of your physical characteristics?

[IceAgeCivilizations]

'Nother great post VitalOne, they say it's all naturalistic, but what they "know" (Darwinism) is severed from life origins, because the implications for life origins are plainly religious, so "beyond our perview" is their response, admitting that it's beyond natural as far as they know, but of course, they would never admit this.

[spidergoat]

My physical characteristics are not embedded in the code of DNA, that is a common misunderstanding. DNA is not a blueprint for the body. My body formed from the interaction between DNA and it's environment. That is why it is impossible to reconstruct an ancient animal from DNA.

ID has everything to do with a certian brand of fundamentalist Christianity. To say otherwise is intellectual dishonesty.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

To say that abiogenesis is the only way is intellectually dishonest, to say the least.

[Cris]

Vitalone,

The evidence is all the design features in cells that cannot be explained by an undirected naturalistic cause. The absence of an explanation isn’t support for anything else or indicates it is not true.

When you have information like this its always traced back to an intelligent cause. This is the evidence. That goes back to my question – what example/evidence can you give of ANYTHING that was designed by an intelligent cause to justify that claim?

Just like how it is not logical to explain the Great Pyramids or Stonehenge as the products of an undirected naturalistic cause, it is only logical to explain them as the results of an intelligent cause (a designer or some intelligent cause). Good examples of evolutionary processes. The pyramids and Stonehenge did not arise without a long evolutionary process before them, e.g. the abilities that had to be developed to cut large blocks, the abilities to move large items, the organizational requirements that had to be developed, the long development of tools, the endless attempts at building smaller things first. If you examine anything that man has created, and he is our ONLY example of intelligence, then you will find “NOTHING” that he has made that has not arisen from an evolutionary process.

In this sense man’s intelligence is not the cause but just a component of an evolutionary process.

Science cannot determine who or what this intelligent cause is and it is thus fully open to interpretation.Except you are ignoring the massively different time components. Man has only been around a few million years and it is only recently, i.e. a few thousand years that we could claim he has created anything complex, e.g. computers. But the basic building blocks of life has had billions of years.

Neither is chance quite a relevant issue here. All of the basic blocks of biology combine through natural attractive and repellant forces. Some things fit together and while others cannot. Everything complex you see is the result of something simpler in exactly the same way that man’s creations are always the result of building on something simpler.

Current observed complexity isn’t evidence of intelligent creation but simply evidence of changes from something simpler. We have no reason to believe that life did not arise from simply much longer processes of change and adaptation.

Or can you provide an example of something complex having been created without any preceding simpler building block?

[VitalOne]

'Nother great post VitalOne, they say it's all naturalistic, but what they "know" (Darwinism) is severed from life origins, because the implications for life origins are plainly religious, so "beyond our perview" is their response, admitting that it's beyond natural as far as they know, but of course, they would never admit this.

Yeah, the sad part is that the design theory really has nothing to do with religion at all, it just has religious implications. You can interpret this intelligent cause as innumerable things besides God, like aliens, a mind, an impersonalistic God, etc....but just because it just happens to have some theistic implications they say that its religious.

Take for instance Antony Flew, the world-famous atheist most known for the coining the "no true scotsman" fallacy. He became a Deist just because of intelligent design...is he also a religious fundementalist like the anti-IDers claim? No he was an atheist all his life, and is famous for debating against the existence of God, famous for writing books similar to Dawkins "The God Delusion", yet he became a Deist just because there is no undirected naturalistic cause for DNA structure, he also knows that the only logical conclusion is that their is an intelligent cause. He does not interpret this intelligent cause as a Judeo-Christian God but rather an impersonal Aristotlian God...

[Liege-Killer]

Darwinists say that their dogma does not include how life supposedly came from non-life


Well there's your first mistake right there -- assuming that reality divides things into these two categories "life" and "non-life." This is the fallacy of the excluded middle, otherwise known as a false dichotomy. There is no authoritative scientific definition of what "life" even is, so how can you decide if something fits into that category? "Life" is a rough, fuzzy-edged concept that we find useful for carving up reality so we can understand it, but that's all it is. Life is just a highly complex arrangement of matter, and there were undoubtedly steps in between what you call "non-life" and "life" that would be hard to classify as either.

But to say that they've come ANYWHERE CLOSE is preposterous.


"Anywhere close" is a relative statement. I'll give you that it's certainly "incorrect" to say we've come really close (so far), but it's not "preposterous." There is more evidence and theoretical framework on the subject than there was a few decades ago, and our understanding continues to grow. We're talking about a process that may have involved thousands of steps, perhaps even tens or hundreds of thousands, before it ever got to anything you'd label as "life." Why do you think this should be able to be replicated in a lab in a finite amount of time spanning a few decades (especially if the necessary techniques and equipment may not even be sophisticated enough yet)? Someone else made this same point in another thread, which I'd guess you read and automatically rejected because it doesn't fit in with your preconceived notions.

Even though we may never know the exact sequence of steps involved, we are developing some good ideas about what kinds of pathways are possible or likely. There is a promising hypothesis that DNA evolved from a previous RNA system, which itself evolved from an even simpler nucleic acid system. That's working backwards. From the other end, as for how it initially got started, it is revealing that some types of non-living materials (I think there's a certain type of clay in particular) that form crystalline structures that act as a template to form more such structure -- i.e. the process is self-perpetuating (read: self-reproducing). It's not too hard to see the connections here. It will take time to develop a fully satisfactory theory on this, but we have a good start. Which is much better than the "God did it" crowd has.

And if Darwinism is true, all life forms should be just a huge amalgam of "transitional forms," afterall, "everything is evolving ala Darwin all the time," so there should be no distinct kinds of animals, just a long line of "transitional forms."


That is exactly what we see. EVERY species is transitional (except the ones at the very tips of the tree of life's branches, and they will be transitional one day if they don't go extinct first). But this is one of the creationists' favorite exercises in moving the goalpost. If I give you species A and Z and you ask for something transitional, I give you species M. Then you say M is its own species, created as it is. So I give you species F that is transitional between A and M. Again, you say this is not good enough. And it goes on and on and on..... forever.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Cris, how 'bout humans? Try that one.

[spidergoat]

To say that abiogenesis is the only way is intellectually dishonest, to say the least.

I didn't say it's the only way, but compared to ID, it's much more reasonable.

[Cris]

Iceage,

It certainly does, scientists have no idea how life came to be.Again, the absence of an explanation gives zero evidence of a fantasy being true.

[spidergoat]

Cris, how 'bout humans? Try that one.

Especially so. Humans have evolved extremely rapidly.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Hey Liege, then why have spiders, and clams, and alligators, and many more, not changed for "hundreds of millions of years?"

[Cris]

Iceage,

Cris, how 'bout humans? Try that one.What about humans?

[Cris]

Iceage,

Hey Liege, then why have spiders, and clams, and alligators, and many more, not changed for "hundreds of millions of years?"Why should they change?

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Do you think humans evolved from a tree shrew, or a chimp, or a great ape, or a small ape, or what have you?

[spidergoat]

Hey Liege, then why have spiders, and clams, and alligators, and many more, not changed for "hundreds of millions of years?"

They have changed. They only have relatively stable forms due to the stability of their environments.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Nothing has changed except extinctions.

[spidergoat]

Sure they have, there are all kinds of spiders. The basic body plan is successful, but there are millions of forms.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

How many spider syngameons do suppose there are?

[IceAgeCivilizations]

However of course, variation within the respective syngameons has been ongoing for thousands of years, sometimes in the wild, and sometimes domestically.

[spidergoat]

You mean species? About 200,000 It is not practical or possible to classify spiders by the ability to produce viable offspring. The best we can do is compare DNA and morphological similarities.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

So you don't really know which "species" are actually interfertile?

[Cris]

Iceage,

Do you think humans evolved from a tree shrew, or a chimp, or a great ape, or a small ape, or what have you?Why does it matter? Do you have any evidence to suggest he was created by magic?

[Liege-Killer]

*sigh*

So many errors to correct, so little time. :rolleyes:

The evidence is all the design features in cells that cannot be explained by an undirected naturalistic cause.


Except that they CAN be explained that way. I would think Michael Behe would serve as an example to you folks. Again and again he has insisted that this or that system could not have evolved step by step (blood clotting systems, flagella, etc) and again and again it has been pointed out that science does, in fact, have good explanations for how those systems evolved. His book has been utterly demolished by such counter-examples. (It was especially amusing how one of his prime metaphors, the mousetrap that he claimed to be "irreducibly complex," was quickly annihilated by several people who built traps of the standard variety which were, indeed, very reducible -- deliciously funny, that).

There is no proof either way, so why act like you know which way it was?


You may not be aware of this, but science is not in the business of "proving" things. There is no "proof" of ANY scientific theory. Proof is something that happens in mathematics. The word you're looking for is "evidence." Theories are accepted if they have lots of evidence and if they explain nature in a helpful way. There is at least some evidence for abiogenesis. There is none for creation. This does not mean conclusively that abiogenesis is true; it does mean that it's a better theory than creation strictly on the weight of evidence.

ID has everything to do with a certian brand of fundamentalist Christianity.


Exactly. Anyone who denies it probably hasn't read the Wedge document.

[spidergoat]

So you don't really know which "species" are actually interfertile?

No, it's a complex field of study. Spiders are a kind of arachnid, related to scorpions and ticks. They evolved 400 million years ago, and were among the first species to live on land [wikipedia].

[VitalOne]

Vitalone,

The absence of an explanation isn’t support for anything else or indicates it is not true.
Yes it is....all the design features are evidence for something called design.....since this design CANNOT be explained by naturalistic means there is only one logical conclusion, an intelligent cause.....its pretty simple...take anything intelligently designed, like a car, TV, etc...the design cannot be explained naturalistically, so logically you must conclude that there was some intelligent cause....

Its like someone saying "So what if Stonehenges don't appear naturalistically, it doesn't matter and does not indicate an intelligent cause" such a foolish, irrational conclusion....a conclusion that only an atheist full of blind faith comes to...


That goes back to my question – what example/evidence can you give of ANYTHING that was designed by an intelligent cause to justify that claim?

What do you mean here? Information is always traced back to an intelligent cause, like say for instance language (information) used to communicate instructions, it is always traced back to an intelligent cause...


Good examples of evolutionary processes. The pyramids and Stonehenge did not arise without a long evolutionary process before them, e.g. the abilities that had to be developed to cut large blocks, the abilities to move large items, the organizational requirements that had to be developed, the long development of tools, the endless attempts at building smaller things first. If you examine anything that man has created, and he is our ONLY example of intelligence, then you will find “NOTHING” that he has made that has not arisen from an evolutionary process.
Yes, and neither did the first forms of life arise from a long evolutionary process before them (at least no evidence in 50 years of searching indicates so). Therefore you are siding with me that there must be an intelligent cause for the first forms of life...


Except you are ignoring the massively different time components. Man has only been around a few million years and it is only recently, i.e. a few thousand years that we could claim he has created anything complex, e.g. computers. But the basic building blocks of life has had billions of years.

Neither is chance quite a relevant issue here. All of the basic blocks of biology combine through natural attractive and repellant forces. Some things fit together and while others cannot. Everything complex you see is the result of something simpler in exactly the same way that man’s creations are always the result of building on something simpler.
Ok....so whats the point here? You're saying that all things can be explained naturalistically, even man-made things we know are the results of an intelligent cause....basically you're using a circular reasoning, so that a theist can never provide evidence that would convince you of an intelligent cause....


Current observed complexity isn’t evidence of intelligent creation but simply evidence of changes from something simpler. We have no reason to believe that life did not arise from simply much longer processes of change and adaptation.

Or can you provide an example of something complex having been created without any preceding simpler building block?
What you're telling me here is simple, its impossible to gather evidence of design, yet at the sametime you ask for evidence, but will reject and deny any type of evidence.

What will indicate design to you then if not design features without any undirected naturalistic cause? Using your logic, if we find some type of alien computer and we never see it naturally forming in nature we should conclude that the natural cause is simply unknown, and there was no intelligent cause....

Also, I still don't understand the point of saying that all complex things have created from something simple....

So basically you're going with the "nature-did-it" explanation, "we don't care if we don't know how something naturally formed or that we have no empirical evidence to support that it naturally formed, we know that it could've quite possibly by some means could've just formed in some way and thats good enough for us"

But at the sametime ask any atheists to believe in God without evidence and they'll say "Why would I believe in something without empirical evidence?" the irony...

[Liege-Killer]

Hey Liege, then why have spiders, and clams, and alligators, and many more, not changed for "hundreds of millions of years?"


What is this, remedial evolution class? If you want to discuss the topic and be taken seriously, you should at least do a little research and learn some of the basics.

Do you think humans evolved from a tree shrew, or a chimp, or a great ape, or a small ape, or what have you?


None of the above. Humans evolved from an ancestor that was also the ancestor of chimps. And that ancestor evolved from a previous ancestor that was also the ancestor of the apes. And that ancestor evolved from a still earlier ancestor that was also the ancestor of tree shrews. And that ancestor evolved from an ancestor far far far in the past that was also the ancestor of, say, carrots. What's your point?

[VitalOne]

Except that they CAN be explained that way. I would think Michael Behe would serve as an example to you folks. Again and again he has insisted that this or that system could not have evolved step by step (blood clotting systems, flagella, etc) and again and again it has been pointed out that science does, in fact, have good explanations for how those systems evolved. His book has been utterly demolished by such counter-examples. (It was especially amusing how one of his prime metaphors, the mousetrap that he claimed to be "irreducibly complex," was quickly annihilated by several people who built traps of the standard variety which were, indeed, very reducible -- deliciously funny, that).
Really whats the explanation? All I see are theories of how things formed, theories without any type of empirical evidence backing them up....I can come up with elaborate theories on how the Great Pyramids naturally formed too or how Stonehenge was a naturalistic formation....all they have are meaningless theories without empirical evidence....

[Liege-Killer]

Y.....since this design CANNOT be explained by naturalistic means


Haha....

It doesn't matter how many times you insistently shout it in caps, that doesn't make it true.

Never mind.... go back to exploring the sand with your head. :rolleyes:

[VitalOne]

Haha....

It doesn't matter how many times you insistently shout it in caps, that doesn't make it true.

Never mind.... go back to exploring the sand with your head. :rolleyes:

Really? Show me then in labs the molecular machines found in cells naturally forming...show me instead of elaborate spurious theories without any type of empirical evidence to back them up.....

I challenge anyone to show me protobacteria naturally forming in labs from self-replicating polymers like the theory goes....this will be great evidence....but I say that it simply CANNOT be done....

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Liege thinks it will be done within billions of years.

[Liege-Killer]

Really? Show me then in labs the molecular machines found in cells naturally forming...show me instead of elaborate spurious theories without any type of empirical evidence to back them up.....

I challenge anyone to show me protobacteria naturally forming in labs from self-replicating polymers like the theory goes....this will be great evidence....but I say that it simply CANNOT be done....


There you go glossing over the time issue again. Of course a developmental pathway that took millions of years, or even a part of that pathway that took thousands of years, is not going to occur in a lab in a matter of days, weeks, years, or decades. What is it about this that is so hard to grasp?

What we do see in the lab is replication of very small segments of various parts of that pathway. And if we can do that, then it is reasonable to think that eventually the whole thing will be accessible to science. You seem to want the complete, total pathway all at once. By that standard, a lot of scientific theories would never have gotten anywhere. Science is gradual.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

The shell game is surely in place when they say that abiogenesis happened in some mysterious environment which is "hard to duplicate, and so has yet to be duplicated, and which hasn't occurred since billions of years ago," how conveeeenient, and they say it takes much more faith to believe that there's a Creator, wow.

[VitalOne]

There you go glossing over the time issue again. Of course a developmental pathway that took millions of years, or even a part of that pathway that took thousands of years, is not going to occur in a lab in a matter of days, weeks, years, or decades. What is it about this that is so hard to grasp?

What we do see in the lab is replication of very small segments of various parts of that pathway. And if we can do that, then it is reasonable to think that eventually the whole thing will be accessible to science. You seem to want the complete, total pathway all at once. By that standard, a lot of scientific theories would never have gotten anywhere. Science is gradual.
So basically you're telling me you have no evidence.

- You should be able to show in labs the phase right before the self-replicating polymers turned into bacteria (this doesn't require millions years or anything like that)
- You should be able to show how DNA just happened to formed from spontaneous chemical reactions and fit into the correct position in the bacteria
- You should be able to show how the molecular machines (that just "happen" to be able read and interpret genetic information) arose from chemical reactions
- You should be able to show how any of the design features arose from chemical reactions

All I get is "well it took millions of years so we don't need any type of actual real evidence to support what we say, instead we have spurious theories that match what we believe"

[IceAgeCivilizations]

"It happend a long time ago, that's how we know it happened."

[VitalOne]

"It happend a long time ago, that's how we know it happened."

Yeah, this is basically their answer. I can easily form an elaborate theory of how the Great Pyramids happened to naturally form over time....in fact there is a statistical chance that the Great Pyramids really did naturally form over time...I guess we can just believe that it did...

[iceaura]

..since this design CANNOT be explained by naturalistic means there is only one logical conclusion, an intelligent cause..... The evidence so far points to explanation by naturalistic means. There is no evidence pointing to supernatural means. There are plenty of naturalistic means available, and more to be found no doubt. We don't know what actually happened: we're working on it.

You and IAC claim that when a scientist says "We don't know, we're working on it" the scientist is manifesting faith and invoking a God.

"We don't know" = God, in your arguments.

Worse, or rather as bad, when a scientist says "we don't know which of these possibilities, if any, will check out " you fail to learn about the possibilities, and just hear "we don't know". And that, of course, = God.

The less you know, the bigger your God.

You fail to comprehend evolutionary explanations, and declare that failure to be evidence of God's handiwork.

The less you comprehend, the bigger your God.

If you were even more ignorant and uncomprehending, you would be telling us that God creates babies in mommy's tummy. Because a baby is far too complex to just be the spontaneous and random associations of chemicals, it must be a product of design and creation, true? And we would have no way of persuading you otherwise.

[VitalOne]

The evidence so far points to explanation by naturalistic means. There is no evidence pointing to supernatural means. There are plenty of naturalistic means available, and more to be found no doubt. We don't know what actually happened: we're working on it.

You and IAC claim that when a scientist says "We don't know, we're working on it" the scientist is manifesting faith and invoking a God.

"We don't know" = God, in your arguments.

Worse, or rather as bad, when a scientist says "we don't know which of these possibilities, if any, will check out " you fail to learn about the possibilities, and just hear "we don't know". And that, of course, = God.

The less you know, the bigger your God.

You fail to comprehend evolutionary explanations, and declare that failure to be evidence of God's handiwork.

The less you comprehend, the bigger your God.

If you were even more ignorant and uncomprehending, you would be telling us that God makes babies grow in mommy's tummy. And we would have no way of persuading you otherwise.
Really? Tell me what is this evidence? And please don't give me simple spurious theories about how it could've happened...the only actual evidence is Miller's experiment done in 1953 that shows that amino acids can naturally form....this is ofcourse not evidence for anything...its like someone saying the material Stonehenge is made of arises naturally, therefore Stonehenge is a naturalistic formation...

The notion isn't "we don't know" the notion is that "we've been trying for 50 years and can't find any naturalistic cause" which is why a lot of biologists are favoring panspermia instead now....it solves this great problem....no one is invoking God only a rational, logical conclusion....if there is no undirected naturalistic cause for something with innumerable design features then there must have been some intelligent cause...

I'm still waiting for this great evidence you have...

[iceaura]

And please don't give me simple spurious theories about how it could've happened... When you are claiming something is impossible, a theory about how it could have happened - a theory, mind you, something that fits the facts - is a direct contradiction of your claim.

if there is no undirected naturalistic cause for something with innumerable design features then there must have been some intelligent cause... Meanwhile, until we have found that that there is no such explanation, no such conclusion follows or is indicated.

.the only actual evidence is Miller's experiment done in 1953 that shows that amino acids can naturally form.... The more ignorant your are, the bigger your God. If you didn't know about Miller's trials, or if they hadn't been done, you would have even better evidence for your god, right?

[VitalOne]

When you are claiming something is impossible, a theory about how it could have happened - a theory, mind you, something that fits the facts - is a direct contradiction of your claim.
Fits what facts? What evidence supports it? NOTHING supports it...its all just speculative theories about how it could've possibly happened...


Meanwhile, until we have found that that there is no such explanation, no such conclusion follows or is indicated.
This doesn't make any sense....so you're telling me if we NEVER find an undirected naturalistic cause all it means is that naturalistic cause is unknown, right?

AHAHAHAHAHA


The more ignorant your are, the bigger your God. If you didn't know about Miller's trials, or if they hadn't been done, you would have even better evidence for your god, right?
No, the more knowledge, the bigger God or some intelligent cause becomes...the evidence will eventually become staggering outweighing everything....

[(Q)]

Ah yes, another topic in the long line of topics not understood by Christians to bleat, "God did it."

IAC - is there anything your god didn't do?

[Liege-Killer]

So basically you're telling me you have no evidence.


Nice work on the willful misreading of my post. No, I clearly told you that there is some evidence. There are bits and pieces that are understood. We don't have the whole thing yet, and no one claims that we do. And I, for one, don't claim abiogenesis to be a fact. But I do see it has a lot going for it, much more so than any other hypothesis.

- You should be able to show in labs the phase right before the self-replicating polymers turned into bacteria (this doesn't require millions years or anything like that)
- You should be able to show how DNA just happened to formed from spontaneous chemical reactions and fit into the correct position in the bacteria
- You should be able to show how the molecular machines (that just "happen" to be able read and interpret genetic information) arose from chemical reactions
- You should be able to show how any of the design features arose from chemical reactions


You know, getting an in-depth understanding of a scientific issue actually takes some work. I said there are bits and pieces of the puzzle that have been solved, but you actually have to read the work of scientists, read their books, read their papers, take some science classes. There is an immense amount of information available just on the internet alone. How much time have you spent taking advantage of it? Seeing as how you make comments like "DNA just happened to form" I can tell the answer -- not much. And so why should anyone take your arguments seriously?

You and Ice also should understand that this was a historical process, and we may never know the precise form it took. The best we may be able to do is develop a highly plausible explanation that we take to be sufficiently similar to what actually happened. By way of analogy, we may never know the precise pathway the Native Americans took to get to the Americas (I mean precisely, such as the exact latitude and longitude at every step of their trip, or every site they stopped at to camp or spend the winter). But we know from other evidence that they, in fact, did travel from Asia to America. We can make very educated guesses about their route, but will never know the precise details. It is similar with abiogenesis and other theories that try to reconstruct ancient events. That means such theories will never be perfect; but show me a better alternative.

[Michael]

Darwinists say that their dogma does not include how life supposedly came from non-life, billions of years ago, "plenty of time," which enables them to hide from the God question, what a surprise, it's the ol' shell game.First of all: Who are these "Darwinists"?

It's not a religion :p

Many scientifically minded Christians accept Darwin's explanation for biological diversity.

Again, this is science, not religion. A concept some theists seem to have confused.

Evolution does not explain how life came from non-life. That is a different scientific theory. Evolution is an explanation of how life, that was already here, changes over time.


Michael

[James R]

Darwinists say that their dogma does not include how life supposedly came from non-life, billions of years ago, "plenty of time," which enables them to hide from the God question, what a surprise, it's the ol' shell game.

Read On the origin of species by, you guessed it, Darwin. He explicitly explains that he is not speculating on the origin of life.

So, for once, you are technically correct, even if you unknowingly blundered onto this particular truth. Darwinism, defined as the work of Darwin, does not include the origin of life. Few things are easier to verify.

So why is the Scientific God more believable than the God of the Bible, who was worshipped in China 4,000 years ago as Shang Ti?

The Chinese have no record of the Christian God from 4000 years ago.

And if Darwinism is true, all life forms should be just a huge amalgam of "transitional forms," afterall, "everything is evolving ala Darwin all the time," so there should be no distinct kinds of animals, just a long line of "transitional forms."

Correct. Every life form is a transitional form.

Since there is no evidence for abiogenesis, why teach it as the only possibility for the origin of life?

Do you know what the word "abiogenesis" means? It seems you do not. Look it up.

The evidence is all the design features in cells that cannot be explained by an undirected naturalistic cause.

There is no evidence that naturalistic causes are insufficient. Where did you get that idea from? Since the remainder of your argument follows from this incorrect assumption, you're wasting your time.

What do you mean here? Information is always traced back to an intelligent cause, like say for instance language (information) used to communicate instructions, it is always traced back to an intelligent cause...

Another error. Start with Claude Shannon's definition of "information". Look it up. You will find that information is by no means always associated with intelligence. Next, research the physical concept of entropy and how it relates to information.

You make yourself look silly when you display this basic lack of knowledge and yet feel free to draw wide-ranging conclusions.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

No one can tell by science how life came to be, so we should treat as science what we do know, and so leave the origin of life open to possibilities other than abiogenesis, unless of course, we want to be intellectually dishonest, right James R?

[iceaura]

No, the more knowledge, the bigger God or some intelligent cause becomes... Not your god, as presented by you: it depends completely on you not knowing stuff. In this case, you don't know about the facts that a theory of abiogenesis would have to fit, or the kinds of theories available, and so you maintain a large place for your god to be and to act. The more you learn about these matters, the less room there will be for a god - a smaller god, then.

This doesn't make any sense....so you're telling me if we NEVER find an undirected naturalistic cause all it means is that naturalistic cause is unknown, right? Yep. And in fact there is currently little hope of establishing for certain the exact sequence of events that led to living beings on Earth. We can learn more, and refine the theories, and discard the impossible, but among the rest we may never be able to choose.

When you're done laughing, pick up a logic text and review your arguments in its light. You are making an impossibility claim. You need more, not less, evidence and greater, not lesser, rigor in your arguments. You need at least some argument.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

The fact remains that science cannot honestly claim to know how life came to be, right?

[iceaura]

The fact remains that science cannot honestly claim to know how life came to be, right? Right.

[spidergoat]

There are other theories than abiogenesis. None of them take the intellectual shortcut of God(an infinite thing which we don't understand) did(through unknown mechanisms) it. I have no idea why abigenesis couldn't be the mechanism.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

But you have no idea how it would work, so you have no point.

[Liege-Killer]

No one can tell by science how life came to be, so we should treat as science what we do know, and so leave the origin of life open to possibilities other than abiogenesis [....]


It IS open to other possibilities. Do you have any other scientific possibilities to discuss? Invisible supernatural beings are not scientific.

The fact remains that science cannot honestly claim to know how life came to be, right?


True in a way. But science does not know anything with 100% certainty. Name any sceintific theory you like, and tommorrow someone could discover evidence that it is flawed in some way and there is a better theory. Furthermore, no theory can honestly claim to explain what it attempts to explain until it is complete and has been developed! You want the answer all at once. Once again, science doesn't work that way. You want revelation, and that is more the area of religion.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

So we are expected to buy abiogenesis dogma, though purely theoretical, until it will supposedly get fleshed out? Why should we follow like lemmings those who want any reality for origins other than a Creator?

[spidergoat]

It's not only theoretical, and scientists do have some idea of how it can work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegelman_Monster

Sol Spiegelman set a form of evolution in motion using no cells at all, only the simple building blocks of RNA and an enzyme together in a test tube. The result is a self-replicating chain of RNA that can adapt to adverse environments. It's called Spiegelman's Monster. It's not a virus or an organism of any kind, just free-floating molecules.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

"SOME idea of how it CAN work?"

Spiegelman's Spaghetti Monster?

[spidergoat]

Read it and weep.

[Michael]

The fact remains that science cannot honestly claim to know how life came to be, right?Right.

Which is why science is so much fun :) To try and figure out the how.

To say, well well well I know... three lesbian Goddesses did it! Doesn't offer much scientifically or rationally and probably doesn't correspond to reality. Could be true that a few super hot Goddesses created life and perhaps it makes people feel better to think that such is the answer, but I seriously doubt that was the case.

Scientists will unlock this mystery one day as well.

So there will little place left for the Goddesses.
Poor girls.

Michael

[IceAgeCivilizations]

It's good that you admit that a Creator could have done it, well done.

[spidergoat]

Yeah, could be aliens too. However, there seems to be less and less required of them. Surely a small self-catalyzed reaction would hardly demand the attention of a God.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Surely, but what is it?

[spidergoat]

The experiment I mentioned is an example of how replication and natural selection can emerge from relatively simple building blocks of organic molecules. For life to occur, it is theorized that you need replication and some form of metabolism.

[Nutter]

http://www.parallaxpictures.org/AdEgo_bin/SandHead.jpg

What we do see in the lab is replication of very small segments of various parts of that pathway. And if we can do that, then it is reasonable to think that eventually the whole thing will be accessible to science.


Even if "scientists" (i.e., natural philosophers) were able to replicate abiogenesis in a lab, that would demonstrate the need for an intelligent designer.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Great point Nutter.

[iceaura]

Even if "scientists" (i.e., natural philosophers) were able to replicate abiogenesis in a lab, that would demonstrate the need for an intelligent designer. So we have abiogenesis disproven if it cannot be replicated in a lab, and

abiogenesis disproven if it ever is replicated in a lab.

Doesn't sound like labs have much of a role, in Creationist explanations.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Nutter's was a point of logic.

[Michael]

It's good that you admit that a Creator could have done it, well done.Actually I said Creator(s) - it's good to see you can accept polytheism may be correct, well done IAC you're getting there :)

[James R]

No one can tell by science how life came to be, so we should treat as science what we do know, and so leave the origin of life open to possibilities other than abiogenesis, unless of course, we want to be intellectually dishonest, right James R?

You didn't look up "abiogenesis", did you?

abiogenesis: A hypothetical organic phenomenon by which living organisms are created from nonliving matter.

Nothing in the term "abiogenesis" says that a God wasn't involved. Abiogenesis is a generic term referring to life developing from non-life. It thus encompasses God creating life from non-life, as well as life spontaneously arising from non-life by undirected chemical processes.

In other words, saying "abiogenesis" by itself doesn't close off any possibilities.

Got any ideas how abiogenesis might have happened, amenable to scientific investigation, IAC?

[Sarkus]

Even if "scientists" (i.e., natural philosophers) were able to replicate abiogenesis in a lab, that would demonstrate the need for an intelligent designer. Flawed logic (i.e. a logical fallacy).

It would merely demonstrate the need for an intelligent designer to recreate the conditions / event in a laboratory.

At no point does the recreation of the event in a lab (requiring the intelligent designer - i..e Man) logically give rise to the original event requiring such a designer.

[Liege-Killer]

So we are expected to buy abiogenesis dogma, though purely theoretical, until it will supposedly get fleshed out? Why should we follow like lemmings those who want any reality for origins other than a Creator?


Who ever said you are expected to buy it? I certainly didn't. You are free to believe whatever you wish, and you obviously do. Are you being forced to believe this theory? Is someone holding a gun to your head?

You know what, I think I'm done with this. It seems every forum has its own anti-evolution trolls who know next to nothing about evolution, who persist in the same flawed arguments over and over again, in page after page of different threads, willfully ignoring every refutation of their views, holding their fingers in their ears and chanting "la la la la la la" to avoid hearing any truth.

It's very revealing that a very large percentage of your posts are one-liners; this is not the sign of a serious debator, but rather of an annoying mosquito who just comes in for a quick bite. It's guerilla-style, hit-and-run debating. I'm more interested in someone who will seriously reply to his opponent's points. At least VitalOne does a slightly better job of this than you do.

It's been fun, really, but I don't think it's a good idea to engage you guys any further on evolution and related issues. It's pointless, you will never learn anything, you will never listen to reason, you have your minds made up. I know you will say the same of your opponents, and that only proves how pointless this all is.

Perhaps one day, when you can prove you've spent some time learning some of the basic science involved, and you're ready to debate in an adult fashion, we can try again. Until then, adios, buddy.....

[IceAgeCivilizations]

No, you apparently won't listen to reason, but as you say, that is your perogative, and by the way, I do believe in evolution per se, so we just need to discuss the details shall we say.

[SkinWalker]

Moved to Biology and Genetics since this is a biological topic

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Why did you change the title of the thread Skin?

[SkinWalker]

To keep it more general. Moreover, the previous title did not make grammatical sense.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

You have never done that before, why this one Skin?

[one_raven]

It was locked while I was typing my reply, but fortunately I copy the text of all my posts before posting.

Since this is really the same thread...

Abiogenesis is really just code for Atheistic scientists which means "we don't have a clue."

You're right, they don't know.
However, there is nothing to be decoded, they admit they don't know.

1.) There is no shame in saying, "I do not know yet, but I have some ideas and I am trying to find out.
2.) Not knowing teh answer does not mean, "God did it!"
3.) By your reasoning, a Theist saying "God did it", is Theist "code" for, "I don't know".

[IceAgeCivilizations]

They are nowhere close to creating life, therefore, to say that they eventually will is foolish.

[SkinWalker]

You have never done that before, why this one Skin?

Why not? Grammar is an important thing. The previous title presented a grammatical problem. The new title is more accurate, and if you disagree, it is provocative enough for the disagreeing person to refute in the thread.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

You never changed "bad grammar" in a title before, and why did you leave God out of the title, I wrote the title, you didn't, so why didn't you start your own thread, you little social engineer you. (Hey Skin, is social engineer a derogatory term?)

[SkinWalker]

They are nowhere close to creating life, therefore, to say that they eventually will is foolish.

"They" don't have a laboratory that will house an experiment that will take millions of years of observation as they watch amino acids and polypeptides evolve into replicating proteins.

"Your" explanation is the 'god of the gaps' one, which argues from ignorance that, since the answer is unknown, it must be .

Indeed, the argument that creationists have with abiogenesis is nothing more than a straw man, since their real problem is evolution itself. Those that are deluded by religious doctrines that say life was created by [insert favorite go(s)] and not through gradual changes overtime, can't successfully argue [i]against evolution since it is sound and valid. Therefore, they pick the unknown to attack, in this case abiogenesis, since there is not sufficient data to provide a complete naturalistic explanation.

There is, however, sufficient data to provide viable hypotheses on how abiogenesis works and how it might have worked. Which is the reason I moved the thread to the appropriate forum where there are those with expertise in the field who, should they so choose, could educate others on the subject.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

I believe in evolution per se, just not your brand that goo morphed into you.

Who would wait for the results of your million year experiment and expect any affirmative results? Only an Atheistic Darwinite!

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Moved to Biology and Genetics since this is a biological topic


Bullshit it is. IAC has never talked science, be it biology, genetics or otherwise. Samcdkey has been doing a good job at removing IAC's creationist shit from what is supposed to be a science subforum. So why the hell are you poking your nose in here and inappropriately moving a creationist troll's thread back here?

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Merely because he didn't like God in the title, what a pud.

[S.A.M.]

I don't think discussing abiogenesis as faith is appropriate in Biology and Genetics. However, the discussion is perhaps better suited to a general science subforum. Since it is an issue in science that should not be ignored, I'm moving it to Science and Society.

Jimmy, please try and control your evangelistic and trolling urges.

[John99]

I don't think discussing abiogenesis as faith is appropriate in Biology and Generics

ha ha ha ha

a little to the right:D

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Yeh, their belief that it could be duplicated in a lab experiment lasting millions of years has absolutely nothing to do with faith, ahahaha.

[Nikelodeon]

Jimmy, please try and control your evangelistic and trolling urges.
But then there would be no posts from him.....oh I see.

[Xelios]

Yeh, their belief that it could be duplicated in a lab experiment lasting millions of years has absolutely nothing to do with faith, ahahaha.
Faith is stupidly defined in a lot of cases. In the way you're using it we could apply it to anything. We could say I have faith that the sun will come up tomorrow, because I could never know with 100% certainty that it will. Or that believing gravity will still work 5 minutes from now is an act of faith.

When you use 'faith' so liberally it loses its meaning.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

If not faith, then what do you call it when scientists say that if they had a million years to conduct the abiogenesis experiment, they know it would be successful?

[spidergoat]

They actually are close to observing molecular replicators forming in conditions not unlike the early oceans.

One point is that even if scientists do observe this, it only proves the concept. We will probably never know what exactly happened, because there is more than one way it could have occurred, and the evidence is highly perishable.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

If you don't even know one way, how can you say there could have been more than one way, how ridiculous.

[Medicine*Woman]

If not faith, then what do you call it when scientists say that if they had a million years to conduct the abiogenesis experiment, they know it would be successful?

*************
M*W: What about scientists who generate human cells in a Petri dish?

[spidergoat]

All I'm saying is that in all probability, there will never be proof of what actually happened, only proof of one likely course.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

"Proof of one likely course," so how do you decide which is likely, and how do you prove something which is only "likely?"

[spidergoat]

I mean, a successful experiment would be proof of concept, not proof of history. This would be sufficient support of abiogenesis to make it the preferred theory of the origin of life.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

It already is "the preferred theory," without evidence.

[spidergoat]

There is evidence to support it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegelman_Monster

[leopold99]

wow, 0 to 6 pages in about 24 hours!

anyway, the problem i have with all of this is why abiogenesis is not taught in our high schools.

you hear plenty about evolution but nothing about abiogenesis. why?

spidergoat,
your links say nothing about intelligent life from the elements.

[spidergoat]

It is taught as one of several theories.

Evolution explains how the higher life forms developed from the more primitive ones. The major thing missing is how organic chemistry formed replicators. The other thing is to explain primitive metabolisms.

[VitalOne]

There is evidence to support it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegelman_Monster

These things don't show anything about how the apparent design in cells arose....they only show that RNA can replicate under unnatural circumstances (this is pretty obvious even before the Spiegelman Monster) and that amino acids (a bunch of chemicals) can form under certain conditions (also pretty obvious)....in other words it doesn't show anything at all about how the DNA formed, where the molecular machines came from, where the DNA came from, etc.....

Its equivalent to me saying the Great Pyramids are a natural formation because the material its made of arises naturally, and also mountains arise naturally....

[iceaura]

Nutter's was a point of logic. A "point" of logic and a "fallacy" of logic are not the same thing.
If not faith, then what do you call it when scientists say that if they had a million years to conduct the abiogenesis experiment, they know it would be successful? No scientist says that. Scientists don't talk - or think - like that. You do.
These things don't show anything about how the apparent design in cells arose....they only show that RNA can replicate under unnatural circumstances (this is pretty obvious even before the Spiegelman Monster) and that amino acids (a bunch of chemicals) can form under certain conditions (also pretty obvious).... Obvious, are they, now that they have been demonstrated ? And so will the other necessary and possoible steps appear, if and when they are figured out. And the area of ignorance available for your God to have acted in will keep shrinking - maybe never to zero, as it has for lightning strike, but quite a bit from its current playground.
Its equivalent to me saying the Great Pyramids are a natural formation because the material its made of arises naturally, and also mountains arise naturally.... Before anyone knew how the Great Pyramids were built, did their construction require a deity?

Before anyone knew how snowflakes came to have their amazing designs, just like designed tile patterns or designed lacework, did each snowflake require a deity's involvement ?

[leopold99]

It is taught as one of several theories.
i disagree.
the proof is that people here must continually discern between evolution and abiogenesis.

[spidergoat]

These things don't show anything about how the apparent design in cells arose....they only show that RNA can replicate under unnatural circumstances (this is pretty obvious even before the Spiegelman Monster) and that amino acids (a bunch of chemicals) can form under certain conditions (also pretty obvious)....in other words it doesn't show anything at all about how the DNA formed, where the molecular machines came from, where the DNA came from, etc.....

Its equivalent to me saying the Great Pyramids are a natural formation because the material its made of arises naturally, and also mountains arise naturally....

There is no apparent design in cells, quite the opposite. Cells with a nucleus are a cooperative affair between two formerly separate organisms. Once the principles behind the formation of replicators are known, natural selection takes over, and it leads to the tree of life.

RNA is a kind of molecular machine. In fact all catalysts are a kind of molecular machine. DNA probably did not encode the first life, since it is so complex. Something simpler started it, and DNA was a later innovation. It has been suggested that the first replicators might have been minerals or crystals.

[iceaura]

One problem is that Darwinian evolution is also the major proposed theory of abiogenesis.

It doesn't just work on DNA, after all. It's a fundamental theory of evolution of anything that meets its criteria of applicability. You can use it to design electrical circuits. It's obviously a possibility, and the evidence points more to it than to any other proposal yet.

[spidergoat]

i disagree.
the proof is that people here must continually discern between evolution and abiogenesis.
Teaching it and learning it are quite different things.

[leopold99]

Teaching it and learning it are quite different things.
i never heard of abiogenesis until i made my appearance on this board.
edit
and apparently a whole slew of people hasn't heard about it either.
end edit.

i was never told that evolution and the origins of life were two different things in high school.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Fancy that, how deceptive of them, what a surprise!

[leopold99]

that's my primary beef about this whole deal. and i want to know why this isn't being taught in our high schools.
as a matter of fact it should be taught that science has no evidence that supports intelligent life from the elements.

[spidergoat]

Well, I never payed much attention in high school, I forget how bad science education can be in the US. It's not true that there is no evidence of abiogenesis, there is some quite compelling evidence, it just isn't conclusive yet. Intelligence is an emergent property of life. It can be traced backwards to it's origins. At some point, intelligence became a survival advantage.

[leopold99]

Well, I never payed much attention in high school, I forget how bad science education can be in the US.
of course! it only happens in the US :rolleyes:

what high school did you go to spidergoat? why don't you look it up and see if this stuff was taught there.

[spidergoat]

Middletown High School, Middletown, Maryland. I might still have my notes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middletown_High_School,_Middletown,_Maryland

[VitalOne]

Middletown High School, Middletown, Maryland. I might still have my notes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middletown_High_School,_Middletown,_Maryland

I went to Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring, MD, and I remember learning a little bit about abiogenesis, but not much at all. Just about Miller's experiments...most of the things we learned in biology was about evolution and genetics....

[VitalOne]

There is no apparent design in cells, quite the opposite. Cells with a nucleus are a cooperative affair between two formerly separate organisms. Once the principles behind the formation of replicators are known, natural selection takes over, and it leads to the tree of life.

RNA is a kind of molecular machine. In fact all catalysts are a kind of molecular machine. DNA probably did not encode the first life, since it is so complex. Something simpler started it, and DNA was a later innovation. It has been suggested that the first replicators might have been minerals or crystals.

Yes there is, there's lots of apparent design in cells....as for DNA, I meant genetic material, the evidence you gave gives no idea how the RNA or DNA or any genetic material arose....and how the molecular machines that read, interpret, and translate that information arose....which is why an intelligent cause makes sense...

The evidence you showed just shows that RNA can replicate (so what?) it doesn't tell us where the RNA originated or anything.....

[spidergoat]

It shows that RNA can form spontaneously in the presence of a catylist. This is one piece of the puzzle, just to contradict the notion that abiogenesis is merely speculation. This RNA can also adapt, showing one of the attributes of life.

An intelligent cause only defers the explanation to how did that intelligent thing come about.

[iceaura]

as a matter of fact it should be taught that science has no evidence that supports intelligent life from the elements. But that would be false. There is lots of evidence that all life - including the intelligent beings and the others on this forum - emerged from "the elements".

For starters, it did emerge - it wasn't always around.

For another, it is made up of "the elements" even today, and emerges from them (with necessary catalysis, of course) routinely.

And for a third, there are various ways in which such emergence can happen, and several of them would have had their necessary conditions met by the world of "the elements". First and most likely among them we have the patterns we have come to call Darwinian Evolution.

And so forth.
Yes there is, there's lots of apparent design in cells.... There is none, AFAIK. Not a single complex of irreducible complexity, not a single complex unrelatable to past and other complexes, nothing that looks designed, exists in any cell. And everything in every cell grew - it all "spontaneously" assembled without any intervening supernatural beings.

[VitalOne]

There is none, AFAIK. Not a single complex of irreducible complexity, not a single complex unrelatable to past and other complexes, nothing that looks designed, exists in any cell. And everything in every cell grew - it all "spontaneously" assembled without any intervening supernatural beings.
Really whats your evidence for this? Show me RNA and the molecular machines spontaneously assembling in labs then I'll shut up....otherwise you've got nothing but blind atheistic faith...

As for no design, you do know that you can reprogram bacteria right by changing the genetic information right? Being able to reprogram something like a sotware program is no sign of design to you? Molecular machines reading, interpreting, translating, and carrying out instructions based on genetic information (a four character ciphertext code) is not design to you?

It shows that RNA can form spontaneously in the presence of a catylist. This is one piece of the puzzle, just to contradict the notion that abiogenesis is merely speculation. This RNA can also adapt, showing one of the attributes of life.

An intelligent cause only defers the explanation to how did that intelligent thing come about.
No it doesn't, it shows that using already pre-existing RNA combined with salts, and replicating enzymes that RNA and replicate...woah that proves absolutely nothing.......

[iceaura]

Really whats your evidence for this? Show me RNA and the molecular machines spontaneously assembling in labs Happens every day. It's called "growth and reproduction"

If you have seen something in a cell that looks designed, to you, lets hear about it. It all self-assembles, it's all grown rather than made, the means and capability of past and further evolutionary change are right there in front of everyone's eyes, etc.
As for no design, you do know that you can reprogram bacteria right by changing the genetic information right? Being able to reprogram something like a sotware program is no sign of design to you? It isn't like a software program - false and misleading metaphor. And I can reprogram all kinds of computer stuff no one designed - like the little machines in the game "Life". If things can live in a computer that no one designed to be there, why not in the big world? It's far more complex - - -.

[VitalOne]

Happens every day. It's called "growth and reproduction"

If you have seen something in a cell that looks designed, to you, lets hear about it. It all self-assembles, it's all grown rather than made, the means and capability of past and further evolutionary change are right there in front of everyone's eyes, etc.
All talk and no evidence....I already talked about all the design features in cells...

Show me how its grown? There's no evidence that its grown...none at all...


It isn't like a software program - false and misleading metaphor. And I can reprogram all kinds of computer stuff no one designed - like the little machines in the game "Life". If things can live in a computer that no one designed to be there, why not in the big world? It's far more complex - - -.
Yes it is, its very similar to a computer, according to bioengineers (are you a bioengineer?):
"At the genetic level, bacteria use many of the same tricks as computer circuitry. In a typical genetic circuit, one gene produces a protein that turns a corresponding gene on or off, much the way a computer inverter turns a 1 into a 0 and vice versa. Switched on, a gene might produce a chemical signal that directs an organism to seek out food; switched off, it helps the organism conserve energy. By plugging in proteins and genes, Weiss can activate or deactivate chemical signals on command"

This is very very similar to a computer....in fact biologists know that bacteria are biological nanocomputers...

Source - http://www.princeton.edu/~rweiss/in-the-news/Popular%20Science%20June%202004.htm

[iceaura]

All talk and no evidence....I already talked about all the design features in cells... You haven't mentioned any, except by assertion. You need an argument,you know, to separate the "designed" elements from the "undesigend". They all just grow in the cell.

Show me how its grown? There's no evidence that its grown...none at all... You're telling me cells don't grow and reproduce?
This is very very similar to a computer....in fact biologists know that bacteria are biological nanocomputers... But that's not what you said. You said the genetic info was like a software program. Not at all the same thing. If you want to use computers as metaphors, for thinking about living beings such as bacteria, you have to be very careful: the hardware/software split does not exist, for starters.

Furthermore, it didn't settle the argument, as I also pointed out. Being able to make changes and "reprogram" something is no evidence of design in that thing - why would it be ? I can reprogram a snowflake mid-growth, for a different pattern, does that make every snowflake designed? Even on computers there are things happening that were not designed in - have you ever played with the game "Life"?

[spidergoat]

What is going on is a deterministic chemical reaction, driven by Brownian motion. The pieces don't have to be smart, just fit together in a certain way. It's just like atoms fitting together in certain ways determine it's properties. Life is just a complex form of matter, a chemical reaction, a machine made of molecules that being complex enough, showed emergent properties like intelligence and game shows. The brilliant thing about evolution is that it explains the basic principles about how arrangements of molecules, able to merely replicate and metabolize energy, will grow more complex with time, since replication can't be perfect, and there is always the chance that an incorrectly translated genetic code might be better, which means only more prolific. It's a chain reaction that requires rare initial conditions, but the initial conditions were here, and the number of planets is very large, so it was bound to happen sooner or later. Any life form that arose in the universe would perceive it as a rare and unbelievable event.That is the source of your (the doubter's) incredulity.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Why only life on Earth, the only Blue Planet?

[spidergoat]

I think it's almost certain there are other planets with life on them, or asteroids, or nebula, you never know.



Here is a fantasic summary of abiogenesis from a Russian scientist who was a pioneer on the subject.

1. There is no fundamental difference between a living organism and lifeless matter. The complex combination of manifestations and properties so characteristic of life must have arisen in the process of the evolution of matter.

2. Taking into account the recent discovery of methane in the atmospheres of Jupiter and the other giant planets, Oparin postulated that the infant Earth had possessed a strongly reducing atmosphere, containing methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water vapor. In his opinion, these were the raw materials for the evolution of life.

3. At first there were the simple solutions of organic substances, the behavior of which was governed by the properties of their component atoms and the arrangement of those atoms in the molecular structure. But gradually, as the result of growth and increased complexity of the molecules, new properties have come into being and a new colloidal-chemical order was imposed on the more simple organic chemical relations. These newer properties were determined by the spatial arrangement and mutual relationship of the molecules.

4. In this process biological orderliness already comes into prominence. Competition, speed of growth, struggle for existence and, finally, natural selection determined such a form of material organization which is characteristic of living things of the present time.

Aleksandr Oparin

[Liege-Killer]

Why only life on Earth, the only Blue Planet?


LMAO!!!

Hey, I know I said I wouldn't subject myself to any more of your rantings on evolution, and I'm not here for that. I want to discuss astronomy with you. How is it that you know the colors of all the planets in the universe? If you have a telescope that good, you might be able to make a good chunk of money -- I'm sure NASA and many universities and observatories would like to get in on that action. ;)

Dude, you are a never-ending source of amusement. I can almost see why people around here tolerate you. :D

[leopold99]

I went to Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring, MD, and I remember learning a little bit about abiogenesis, but not much at all. Just about Miller's experiments...most of the things we learned in biology was about evolution and genetics....
well, since you put it that way then yes, they did teach abiogenesis in my high school.
they also spoke of amino amino acids being formed from the elements.
but here's the clincher, they never said it was a different concept from evolution nor did they call it abiogenesis. in short the students were led to believe they were looking at evolution in action and that evolution explains how we got here.

But that would be false. There is lots of evidence that all life - including the intelligent beings and the others on this forum - emerged from "the elements".
i can't wait for this evidence.

For starters, it did emerge - it wasn't always around.
really?
you have proof of this?

For another, it is made up of "the elements" even today, and emerges from them (with necessary catalysis, of course) routinely.
no, wrong.
cells dude. cells are the catalysts of which you speak.

And for a third, there are various ways in which such emergence can happen, and several of them would have had their necessary conditions met by the world of "the elements". First and most likely among them we have the patterns we have come to call Darwinian Evolution.
wrong on both counts.
evolution is not abiogegnesis, and, i don't care if there is 1,000 billion ways life could have emerged they are all theories until they are proven.
to date not one theory on abiogenesis has been proven to be true.

[iceaura]

For starters, it did emerge - it wasn't always around. ”

really?
you have proof of this? Well, the alternative is lava beings on a waterless planet of molten rock, that left no trace in the chemistry of the their surroundings and disappeared completely before any extant rock was formed.
no, wrong.
cells dude. cells are the catalysts of which you speak. I speak of the reactions inside the cells - and some outside, of course. Cells are not catalysts. But so what? What makes me wrong? Are you denying that living beings are made of the same elements as non-living things ? That living things grow through "spontaneous" chemical invorporation of those elements into new and emergent complexes and structures?
wrong on both counts.
evolution is not abiogegnesis, and, i don't care if there is 1,000 billion ways life could have emerged they are all theories until they are proven. Again the mysterious "wrong" followed by irrelevancy in the place of explanation or argument.

btw:you give the possibilities too much credit. They are not "theories" yet, since the evidence is so scant and nothing is solid. It will take a lot of work to establish a real theory of the actual events of abiogenesis on Earth. The frontrunner now is Darwinian Evolution of various inorganic structures and their carbon associations, in an anaerobic but aqueous environment.

[leopold99]

Again the mysterious "wrong" followed by irrelevancy in the place of explanation or argument.
okay, let me spell this out for you.
scientists claim that they know how the earth was formed.
they also claim to know what conditions existed on the primordial earth.
given the above science tries to "create life" by performing the miller urey experiment in the mid 50s this experiment recreated the conditions that was thought to exist. the experiment failed to produce life.

The frontrunner now is Darwinian Evolution of various inorganic structures and their carbon associations, in an anaerobic but aqueous environment.
it's been 50 years since the first attempt and they still haven't figured it out.

[spuriousmonkey]

okay, let me spell this out for you.
scientists claim that they know how the earth was formed.
they also claim to know what conditions existed on the primordial earth.
given the above science tries to "create life" by performing the miller urey experiment in the mid 50s this experiment recreated the conditions that was thought to exist. the experiment failed to produce life.



They didn't attempt the recreate life. They attempted to create the building blocks that could have made life possible.

[iceaura]

they also claim to know what conditions existed on the primordial earth. Not in detail, they don't. given the above science tries to "create life" by performing the miller urey experiment in the mid 50s this experiment recreated the conditions that was thought to exist. the experiment failed to produce life. Did produce amino acids,though. In just a couple months. Which was pretty exciting, until someone pointed out: they didn't have the circumstances quite right, and the planet was just as big and varied then as now.

When you say "conditions on Earth" you have to specify: where on Earth? Poles ? Rift vents? clay flats? The huge chemical deposits of the lifeless, anaerobic, volcanic planet?

Since then, amino acids have been found in meteorites and space dust. So the Miller-Urey experiments apparently don't provide much firm guidance for further exploration. We don't even know if the first amino acids of living beings formed on earth.
it's been 50 years since the first attempt and they still haven't figured it out. LOL. A whole 50 years ! Almost a quarter of the time professionals with lots of money have spent trying to breed a black tulip.

The archaea, a third and apparently older fundamental branch of all life on earth, the beings probably most informative about the origins of life as we know it, were not even discovered until just a few years ago. It's going to be a long time before anyone knows how to even begin duplicating abiogenesis.

[leopold99]

They didn't attempt the recreate life. They attempted to create the building blocks that could have made life possible.
not according to this:
http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html


It's going to be a long time before anyone knows how to even begin duplicating abiogenesis.
the simple facts are that science HAS NO IDEA how life came to be on this planet.

the fact that science doesn't know isn't conveyed to our students.

[spuriousmonkey]

not according to this:
http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html
.

read your own link. It says exactly what I said.

[Ophiolite]

the simple facts are that science HAS NO IDEA how life came to be on this planet.This is simply untrue. We have several ideas, some of which are in competition with each other, others of which are mutually supportive.
Some examples:
We know that we require a fairly complex pre-biotic chemistry. The Miller-Urey experiment you cited, and many subsequent experiments of similar type have produced a wide range of organic molecules. We have detected over one hundred types of organic molecules in interstellar space. We have found abundant organic material in meteorites. There appears to be no shortage of sources for the basic pre biotic chemicals.

When we subject amino acids to extreme conditions - uv radiation (which would have been prevalent on the primitive Earth), or massive impact (as would be associated with cometary impact) - we find that they polymerise, forming polypetides, the precursors of proteins.

We are aware of many autocatylitic cycles in which the presence of one molecular 'species' catalyses the production of others, which in turn catalyse the production of the original one. This leads to a very 'directed' formation of specific complex molecules. (Thus dispensing with the creationist nonsense that particular proteins couldn't develop because the odds against their random formation is too great. It ain't random.)

Lipid coated water droplets containing varied chemicals and of a size comparable with cells will readily form from a pre-biotic soup. These will likely contain several autocatalytic cycles.

A host of similar observations and concepts take us to the point where we can see many of the components of this complex thing we call life emerging from increasingly complex chemical interactions. I've never understood why believers in God fail to see the wonder and majesty in that.

[leopold99]

read your own link. It says exactly what I said.
i'm not going to pretend to know what miller was thinking when he performed his experiment.
but reading the link leads me to believe that he wasn't sure what he would find or he indeed tried to create life from the conditions thought to have existed.

This is simply untrue.
okay, i'll rephrase. science has no WORKABLE ideas how life came to be on this planet.

[VitalOne]

I think it's almost certain there are other planets with life on them, or asteroids, or nebula, you never know.



Here is a fantasic summary of abiogenesis from a Russian scientist who was a pioneer on the subject.

1. There is no fundamental difference between a living organism and lifeless matter. The complex combination of manifestations and properties so characteristic of life must have arisen in the process of the evolution of matter.

2. Taking into account the recent discovery of methane in the atmospheres of Jupiter and the other giant planets, Oparin postulated that the infant Earth had possessed a strongly reducing atmosphere, containing methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water vapor. In his opinion, these were the raw materials for the evolution of life.

3. At first there were the simple solutions of organic substances, the behavior of which was governed by the properties of their component atoms and the arrangement of those atoms in the molecular structure. But gradually, as the result of growth and increased complexity of the molecules, new properties have come into being and a new colloidal-chemical order was imposed on the more simple organic chemical relations. These newer properties were determined by the spatial arrangement and mutual relationship of the molecules.

4. In this process biological orderliness already comes into prominence. Competition, speed of growth, struggle for existence and, finally, natural selection determined such a form of material organization which is characteristic of living things of the present time.

Aleksandr Oparin
spidergoat,

You're still stuck in your archaic thinking. Aleksandr Oparin's latest work dates back to at most the 1940s before the genetic revolution in 1953....during that time it made immense sense to say that spontaneous chemicals started life because they didn't know about the genetic information, Darwin and others thought the simplest forms of life were just a bunch of chemicals as this guy states also....the only reason why I and others believe there is design is because the genetic information within cells...this genetic information contains all the instructions for the cell...the machines in the cell read this information, interpret it, translate it, and carry out instructions based on this...its very very clear to anyone that there is design (regardless of if its ID or not)....

So bacteria having things very similar to computer inverters isn't design to you all? I guess computers were also natural formations...

[spuriousmonkey]

i'm not going to pretend to know what miller was thinking when he performed his experiment.
but reading the link leads me to believe that he wasn't sure what he would find or he indeed tried to create life from the conditions thought to have existed.


You are doing all the assuming.

from your link which you used to prove your unattainable position.
Miller took molecules which were believed to represent the major components of the early Earth's atmosphere and put them into a closed system


The gases they used were methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen (H2), and water (H2O). Next, he ran a continuous electric current through the system, to simulate lightning storms believed to be common on the early earth. Analysis of the experiment was done by chromotography. At the end of one week, Miller observed that as much as 10-15% of the carbon was now in the form of organic compounds. Two percent of the carbon had formed some of the amino acids which are used to make proteins. Perhaps most importantly, Miller's experiment showed that organic compounds such as amino acids, which are essential to cellular life, could be made easily under the conditions that scientists believed to be present on the early earth. This enormous finding inspired a multitude of further experiments.

Note how nothing is said about trying to create life. Yet you assume it.

I'm sure nobody can know what he was thinking, but apparently YOU can.

And strangely enough it seems to contradict your own sources.

[leopold99]

I'm sure nobody can know what he was thinking, but apparently YOU can.

And strangely enough it seems to contradict your own sources.
okay. fine. it still doesn't change the fact that life hasn't been created from the elements does it?

[spuriousmonkey]

okay. fine. it still doesn't change the fact that life hasn't been created from the elements does it?

How come you are alive then?

[leopold99]

How come you are alive then?
i came from living matter spurious.

although i couldn't find anything on the purpose of the miller urey experiment i did find this:
As Shapiro's subtitle would indicate, he is a ruthlessly honest "Skeptic," the opposite of a "Creationist." His purpose is to demonstrate that much of what has been accepted as "the explanation" of how life first began simply does not hold up to any level of scrutiny. His position is that, rather than foist what he calls "this mythology" on the academic world and the general public, responsible scientists should make the honest declaration that we don't have any idea how life could possibly have come into existence from the inorganic world.
http://www.2001principle.net/links.evolution.htm

[IceAgeCivilizations]

At least the general public knows that scientists have not come close to causing life to form from non-life, despite rosy picture painting by the faithful of abiogenesis.

[Ophiolite]

As Shapiro's subtitle would indicate, he is a ruthlessly honest "Skeptic," the opposite of a "Creationist." His purpose is to demonstrate that much of what has been accepted as "the explanation" of how life first began simply does not hold up to any level of scrutiny.Shit, Leopold, he uses the thoroughly discredited calculations by Fred Hoyle to demonstrate and justify his position. There are skeptics and there are sceptics.

[leopold99]

scenario:
you repeatedly observe life coming from life, time after time after time.
you also notice that you NEVER see life coming from non life.
you also find out that you cannot create life from the known elements.

what conclusions do you draw?

[IceAgeCivilizations]

That life evolved from non-life, of course, and then slime mold changed into moles.

[leopold99]

That life evolved from non-life, of course, and then slime mold changed into moles.
we are not talking about evolution IAC.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

It's a continuum of magic, but I shall desist.

[spidergoat]

That's your side, magic. Our side uses science, which you are either unable to unwilling to understand.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Well there's no proof of any of what you espouse, so call that what you will.

[Medicine*Woman]

Well there's no proof of any of what you espouse, so call that what you will.


*************
M*W: There's no proof of god or jesus either.

[VitalOne]

scenario:
you repeatedly observe life coming from life, time after time after time.
you also notice that you NEVER see life coming from non life.
you also find out that you cannot create life from the known elements.

what conclusions do you draw?
Well the theory goes that the reason we don't see it happening now is because during the time of the birth of Earth the atmospheric conditions were completely different and unnatural compared to these times.....ofcourse this also doesn't work because even in labs under the conditions of after the Earth's birth we still don't see life generated from non-organic matter....

According to Richard Dawkins, causeless chance is the answer....

That's your side, magic. Our side uses science, which you are either unable to unwilling to understand.
Our side is not magic, your side is magic, "some how some way by some unknown means and causeless chance nature just magically did it", our side is a logical conclusion based on empirical observations.....something with immense design features that is impossible to have been generated by an undirected naturalistic cause MUST have had some intelligent cause......its just the same way you would conclude that computers, the Great Pyramids, Stonehenge, etc....had an intelligent cause...

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Indeed.

[spidergoat]

Nonsense. Evolution is not design, it's pseudo-design. It has no predetermined goal in mind that it works towards, that is how we get things like nipples on men. Evolution is directed by the environment. The means is not unknown, and it is not chance, and it is not without cause.

Dawkins is very careful to say that evolution is not chance, in fact it is the exact opposite of chance. I can only conclude after having this explained over and over that your ignorance is deliberate.

[VitalOne]

Nonsense. Evolution is not design, it's pseudo-design. It has no predetermined goal in mind that it works towards, that is how we get things like nipples on men. Evolution is directed by the environment. The means is not unknown, and it is not chance, and it is not without cause.

Dawkins is very careful to say that evolution is not chance, in fact it is the exact opposite of chance. I can only conclude after having this explained over and over that your ignorance is deliberate.
Yeah, but evolution and abiogenesis are two completely different things.

Evolution itself does not require any intelligent cause....but evolution relies entirely on the genetic system that the simplest, earliest forms of life already had, which is what abiogenesis deals with....

Dawkins says that abiogenesis happened by causeless chance...he says it only had to have happened once...

[spidergoat]

What is so magic about that? The opportunities for this to happen in the primordial soup were innumerable.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Like Alphabet Soup.

[iceaura]

you also find out that you cannot create life from the known elements.

what conclusions do you draw? That you don't know how to create "life" from the known elements. But a frog egg does.

This is fun. Let's try that argument on other things.

It's AD 1500 in Europe.
You observe lightning coming from the sky, where God lives.
You never observe lightning coming from anywhere else.
You cannot create lightning, despite hundreds oif years of trying.
What do you conclude?


It's BC 2000 in Amazonia.
You observe ice falling from the sky, where God lives.
You never observe ice anywhere else.
You cannot make ice, despite all your best incantations
What do you conclude ?

And so forth.

Again, if you fit your God into some gap of knowledge or capability in the physical universe, your God will shrink as that gap shrinks. It's a fundamental theological mistake, and a serious cramp on your physical investigations. You end up with a trivialized God and an ignorant population of the faithful, both.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

But the God of the Bible claims to have created it all, big difference.

[spidergoat]

Like Alphabet Soup.

That's not a bad analogy. You are looking at life as it exists today, which is the equivalent to spooning out Hamlet from a bowl of alphabet soup, admittedly unlikely. However, evolutionary theory suggests that the first life was much, much shorter, like spooning out a single word.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Sam, surely you didn't delete all that funnin' in which you were participating.

[leopold99]

What is so magic about that? The opportunities for this to happen in the primordial soup were innumerable.
innumerable? really?
then why, given the fact that science is dying to prove its theory, can't any of those 'innumerable' opportunities be found?

[leopold99]

That you don't know how to create "life" from the known elements. But a frog egg does.

do you even know what's being discussed in this thread?

[James R]

According to Richard Dawkins, causeless chance is the answer....

Indeed.

Are you people dishonest, or just stupid?

Failing to find out what evolution is actually about before criticising it would make you stupid.

Worse would be that you actually do know that evolution involves more than "causeless chance" but you choose to deny that blatantly and pretend the fact doesn't exist. To do that even when people have carefully explained it to you is... un-Christian, to say the least.

[leopold99]

unbelievable.
i'm frikken speechless.

[VitalOne]

Are you people dishonest, or just stupid?

Failing to find out what evolution is actually about before criticising it would make you stupid.

Worse would be that you actually do know that evolution involves more than "causeless chance" but you choose to deny that blatantly and pretend the fact doesn't exist. To do that even when people have carefully explained it to you is... un-Christian, to say the least.

What an unnaturally foolish comment....NO ONE is talking about evolution...we're talking about abiogenesis......Dawkins says causeless chance is the answer to abiogenesis and that it only had to have happened once.....

Dawkins says this:
"Most, though not all, of the informed speculation begins in what has been called the primeval soup, a weak broth of simple organic chemicals in the sea. Nobody knows how it happened but, somehow, without violating the laws of physics and chemistry, a molecule arose that just happened to have the property of self-copying—a replicator. This may seem like a big stroke of luck... Freakish or not, this kind of luck does happen...it had to happen only once... "

This is precisely the nature-did-it explanation...."some how some way by some unknown means nature just magically did it" it makes so much more sense than an intelligent cause...

[iceaura]

do you even know what's being discussed in this thread? Nothing is being discussed in this thread. This thread consists of a series of attempts by various people to explain the possibility of abiogenesis - including the likely role of Darwinian evolution in it - to people unfamiliar with basic evolutionary theory or the fundamentals of scientific reasoning. The format chosen is question and attempted answer. Success will depend on the explanatory clarity of the answers, and on the good faith efforts of the questioners to comprehend them.

Discussion of abiogenesis itself will have to be postponed until it is possible.
but evolution relies entirely on the genetic system that the simplest, earliest forms of life already had, No, it does not and they did not.

Darwinian evolution can occur in anything that reproduces or is reproduced with variation - such as certain clays, crystals, RNA, DNA, certain proteins, patterns of computer pixels, whatever. DNA, the substrate on which Darwinian evolution acts in the evolution of life as we know it, was discovered only long after the first standard theory of evolution had been formalized and accepted. Other substrates were theoretically possible, even in modern times, and more so, in the beginnings.

The first, simplest things whose evolution would yield life as we know it almost certainly did not incorporate DNA. Too complex, too particular in its requirements and chemistry. Other substrates are far more likely.

[leopold99]

even the scholars say the probability of abiogenesis is vanishingly small:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/abiogenesis.html

[VitalOne]

Darwinian evolution can occur in anything that reproduces or is reproduced with variation - such as certain clays, crystals, RNA, DNA, certain proteins, patterns of computer pixels, whatever. DNA, the substrate on which Darwinian evolution acts in the evolution of life as we know it, was discovered only long after the first standard theory of evolution had been formalized and accepted. Other substrates were theoretically possible, even in modern times, and more so, in the beginnings.

The first, simplest things whose evolution would yield life as we know it almost certainly did not incorporate DNA. Too complex, too particular in its requirements and chemistry. Other substrates are far more likely.
No it can't, all you're talking about the concept of natural selection, which can be applied to virtually anything.......but in reality, you know real life, it really does depend on the genetic system....and evolution, meaning a change in species over time does rely on the genetic system...mutations that cause insertions, deletions, etc....in the DNA or RNA

You stray away from how the simplest forms of life developed this system....

[VitalOne]

even the scholars say the probability of abiogenesis is vanishingly small:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/abiogenesis.html

Haha, good link

"Now, if we imagine many, many DNA molecules being formed in the early history of the earth, we might have say 10 100 molecules altogether (which is really much too high). But even this would make the probability of getting one DNA molecule right about one in 10 to the 89,900 power, still essentially zero. And we are not even considering what proteins the DNA generates, or how the rest of the cell structure would get put together! So the real probability would be fantastically small."

Hey but this is more rational and logical than an intelligent cause right? Anything besides an intelligent cause right?

[spidergoat]

innumerable? really?
then why, given the fact that science is dying to prove its theory, can't any of those 'innumerable' opportunities be found?

What do you mean? There is no indication that they cannot be. Science is proceeding at an ever accelerating pace. We just barely began mapping the genomes of life forms.

[iceaura]

even the scholars say the probability of abiogenesis is vanishingly small: Did you notice that the BS you linked to is not from scholars in the field? That the "calculation" is stupid, and irrelevant to abiogenesis?

You stray away from how the simplest forms of life developed this system.... No. You assume that the simple early life forms, and the even simpler not-quite-living complexes of things that evolved into them, resembled modern sophisticated life forms in key, very complicated structural details of your choosing. That assumption is unwarranted. It is almost certainly false. No one in the field makes it. If you want to argue against abiogenesis, setting up impossible forms of it that no one takes seriously and arguing against them only will not work.

This,for example: Now, if we imagine many, many DNA molecules being formed in the early history of the earth, is from some very ignorant person "imagining" some bullshit he (it's almost always a "he") can shoot down. How are those DNA molecules forming? No idea. But the details of their formation are absolutely key to the subsequent "calculation". He seems to be thinking of them as just random combinations of nucleotides. Moronic.

[spidergoat]

Haha, good link

"Now, if we imagine many, many DNA molecules being formed in the early history of the earth, we might have say 10 100 molecules altogether (which is really much too high). But even this would make the probability of getting one DNA molecule right about one in 10 to the 89,900 power, still essentially zero. And we are not even considering what proteins the DNA generates, or how the rest of the cell structure would get put together! So the real probability would be fantastically small."

Hey but this is more rational and logical than an intelligent cause right? Anything besides an intelligent cause right?

DNA was likely not the first encoding mechanism, nor was a cell the first life form, so that's a strawman argument.

[leopold99]

What do you mean? There is no indication that they cannot be. Science is proceeding at an ever accelerating pace. We just barely began mapping the genomes of life forms.
what really gets me is that there only a few possible scenarios for the early conditions on earth.
in other words there are only a few initial starting points.

surely science with all its finess, talent, money, and resources can duplicate those conditions.

[leopold99]

Nothing is being discussed in this thread.

This thread consists of a series of attempts by various people to explain the possibility of abiogenesis - including the likely role of Darwinian evolution in it - to people unfamiliar with basic evolutionary theory
forget it. it's not even worth the effort.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Like one of the Darwinists said (I think it was the Skinster), it would take a lab experiment lasting millions of years to duplicate it, nice.

[iceaura]

what really gets me is that there only a few possible scenarios for the early conditions on earth.
in other words there are only a few initial starting points. The planet was just as big then as now, its surface and various environments just as diverse geologically and probably more so chemically, there are thousands, millions, of significantly different "starting points" to consider.

And combinations of them all.

It was three and a half billion years ago. The sun was different. The moon was different. The atmosphere was different. There was a steady rain of large meteorites bearing complex organics. There was heat and radiation everywhere. There was nothing to break down many organic molecules that did form - they just piled and pooled and blew around and cooked together. Liquid water was a new thing.

Probably, we're better off in the short run - next few decades - reverse engineering from all the kinds of life we can find extant, rather than trying to guess the beginning. That won't take us all the way back, but it might restrict the possibilities to something manageable.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Your right, it is unmanagable, so unmanagable that biologists don't have a clue.

[Athelwulf]

Abiogenesis is Scientific God

Abiogenesis is a process, not a supernatural being.

Furthermore, "scientific god" is an oxymoron.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

What process is that? Can you tell us what it is? If not, "it" is nothing, and therefore, what you proclaim to be science is faith in the unknown.

[iceaura]

On the ground under an oak sits an oak leaf.

The biologist says: hmmm, I wonder why it fell off the tree ?

The Belliever says: how do you know it fell off the tree? It looks like God dropped it there by design. The odds are a million to one againt a leaf landing in that spot by accident.

Well here's the tree, there's the leaf, it had to land somewhere once it fell, I'm just thinking that's the best explanation for the moment.

Not so fast, you're supposed to be a scientist, can you tell me how it fell? You don't know, do you.

Well no, there are a lot of branches up there, and leaves often wander in fall, and I don't know what the wind was like then - in fact, there's a chance it might have fallen off another tree nearby, now that I think of it, - - -

You don't know how it fell, you don't know when, you don't know anything about it, but you just have faith that it fell, is that it? I have faith in God. That's just as scientific as your faith.

There doesn't seem to be any reason to bring a God into this - -

That's because you assume a naturalistic explanation for everything, even when you don't know what happened. You can't even duplicate this alleged "falling leaf" speculation in the lab, can you ?

Well, we drop leaves in the lab sometimes, they fall - -

You drop them. That's a designed drop. Where's your tree ?

It's hard to grow an oak tree in the lab, probably take a few years, won't look like this tree anyway, leaf won't lane in the same place, why would anyone - - -

Always with the excuses. Until you can duplicate it in the lab, I don't see anything scientific about your theories of leaf fall. It's just faith, like mine only in less worthy things. You just have faith in the unknown. I have faith in God.

[VitalOne]

On the ground under an oak sits an oak leaf.

The biologist says: hmmm, I wonder why it fell off the tree ?

The Belliever says: how do you know it fell off the tree? It looks like God dropped it there by design. The odds are a million to one againt a leaf landing in that spot by accident.

Well here's the tree, there's the leaf, it had to land somewhere once it fell, I'm just thinking that's the best explanation for the moment.

Not so fast, you're supposed to be a scientist, can you tell me how it fell? You don't know, do you.

Well no, there are a lot of branches up there, and leaves often wander in fall, and I don't know what the wind was like then - in fact, there's a chance it might have fallen off another tree nearby, now that I think of it, - - -

You don't know how it fell, you don't know when, you don't know anything about it, but you just have faith that it fell, is that it? I have faith in God. That's just as scientific as your faith.

There doesn't seem to be any reason to bring a God into this - -

That's because you assume a naturalistic explanation for everything, even when you don't know what happened. You can't even duplicate this alleged "falling leaf" speculation in the lab, can you ?

Well, we drop leaves in the lab sometimes, they fall - -

You drop them. That's a designed drop. Where's your tree ?

It's hard to grow an oak tree in the lab, probably take a few years, won't look like this tree anyway, leaf won't lane in the same place, why would anyone - - -

Always with the excuses. Until you can duplicate it in the lab, I don't see anything scientific about your theories of leaf fall. It's just faith, like mine only in less worthy things. You just have faith in the unknown. I have faith in God.
This doesn't make any sense...the design theory itself has nothing to do with God, it only has some religious implications....why can't you atheists get this through your thick atheistic skulls....

Also, Sir Isaac Newton and many others were devoutly religious...

[spidergoat]

what really gets me is that there only a few possible scenarios for the early conditions on earth.
in other words there are only a few initial starting points.

surely science with all its finess, talent, money, and resources can duplicate those conditions.

In quality perhaps, but not quantity. A test tube would hold orders of magnitude fewer opportunities for abiogenesis to occur than an ocean. When a simulation of early Earth's conditions were replicated, the building blocks for life did indeed form.

[spidergoat]

This doesn't make any sense...the design theory itself has nothing to do with God, it only has some religious implications....why can't you atheists get this through your thick atheistic skulls....

Also, Sir Isaac Newton and many others were devoutly religious...

More nonsense. Designer=God. ID started as a wedge to get creationism taught in schools.

[Ophiolite]

It is time to come out of the closet and tell you about my uncle Albert. [I have to come out of the closet, since I can't reach the keyboard when I'm inside.]
Albert is a strong atheist and has been so since he can remember. He is also a firm believer in intelligent design. He is absolutely certain that life on Earth was set in motion and guided along the path to humanity by aliens from one of the globular clusters visible from the Southern Hemisphere. He gets really pissed off that religious nutters have hijacked a perfectly respectable theory and thereby consigned it to the scrapheap. [Just for background information, he and Fred Hoyle went to different schools together.]

[IceAgeCivilizations]

And it's wedging good.

[spidergoat]

Is creationism taught in public school science class? No.

[VitalOne]

More nonsense. Designer=God. ID started as a wedge to get creationism taught in schools.

Actually ID existed LONG before the wedge document...and even so you're only riding on an ad hominem logical fallacy...

[IceAgeCivilizations]

ID is as old as the Bible itself, God says that anyone who denies that there must be a Creator responsible for all that we see in nature is a liar, ouch.

[spidergoat]

God told you that?

[IceAgeCivilizations]

It's in The Book.

[spidergoat]

God didn't write it.

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Well, it wasn't His physical hand.

[leopold99]

you people can ridicule and scoff all you want but the facts are clear:
1. the mechanism by which life came to be on this planet is not known.
2. evolution cannot explain self awareness nor can it explain the emergence of intelligence.

[spidergoat]

1. True, but that doesn't support creationism.
2. An animal that had self-awareness and intelligence would be more able to avoid danger. There is a limitation to intelligence, which is that if an animal thought too much about something, it would be more likely to get eaten. Evolution does explain why intelligence evolved.

[leopold99]

When a simulation of early Earth's conditions were replicated, the building blocks for life did indeed form.
yes, correct. the building blocks of life did indeed form.
but what you fail to mention is that those building blocks was destroyed by the very atmosphere used to create them.
in other words the amino acids would need to be removed from the reaction to survive.

i reiterate, science has failed to explain how life arose.

[leopold99]

2. An animal that had self-awareness and intelligence would be more able to avoid danger. There is a limitation to intelligence, which is that if an animal thought too much about something, it would be more likely to get eaten. Evolution does explain why intelligence evolved.
then why aren't plants intelligent or self aware?

[Roman]

then why aren't plants intelligent or self aware?

Because they don't have to be.

[leopold99]

Because they don't have to be.
maybe you and spidergoat misunderstand.
what is it that explains self awareness in humans?
what is it that explains intelligence in animals.

is there an inelligence gene? a self awareness gene?

[spidergoat]

yes, correct. the building blocks of life did indeed form.
but what you fail to mention is that those building blocks was destroyed by the very atmosphere used to create them.
in other words the amino acids would need to be removed from the reaction to survive.

i reiterate, science has failed to explain how life arose.

Obviously enough survived to analyze. I assume the atmosphere doesn't extend into the ocean. The Miller-Urey Experiment proved the concept. There were differences between this experiment and the actual conditions, about which there is some uncertianty. Science has also failed to explain alot of things like gravity and light, that doesn't mean that the pursuit is in error, or a matter of a religious-type faith.

I should also point out that religion has failed to prove their hypothesis with anything like an experiment.

[Roman]

is there an inelligence gene? a self awareness gene?

Probably a lot more than just one gene.
And don't forget you need a bunch of 'hardware' to run intelligence. Eyes, ears, brain, nerves, all that stuff.

A lot of biology comes down to history. Why don't plants have intelligence? Because they lack all the structures required to run what we consider intelligence.

[spidergoat]

maybe you and spidergoat misunderstand.
what is it that explains self awareness in humans?
what is it that explains intelligence in animals.

is there an inelligence gene? a self awareness gene?

Evolution describes how variations occur in copying genes, leading to various body plans. One could imaging how something like a nervous system would be beneficial to the survival of an organism, and that such a plan would become more and more common. Intelligence is just a coordination between a complex nervous system and a set of complex sensory organs. Intelligence is useful to know that that shape in the bushes is a predator, rather than a rock. Trees don't need intelligence because they occupy a unique place in the ecosystem. They have discovered a lifestyle that requires it to be sedentary, and they deal with being food by using tasty structures to deliver it's seeds on purpose. Animals only have to be aware because they are made of structures full of energy (muscles), that other animals could take advantage of. Note that animals that are sedentary like corals also aren't intelligent.

[Billy T]

...i reiterate, science has failed to explain how life arose.Not True at all.

Main problem is to try to decide which of the dozens of way that have been suggested is the most likely.

See http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1389294&postcount=132

for one that is very easy to understand, as a very- plausible, purely-mechanistic,* possibility for the origin of life.

I don't think it the most likely one. (Because I know another that is similar and IMHO, more likely as it is certainly more rapid as it takes many of the steps in 2D rather than 3D in the ocean.) I only posted that one as anyone can understand it who has a high school education.
------------------------
*Follows directly from scientific laws and any reasonable estimate of probabilities of molecules meeting in the ocean, with no need for intervention by God or “IDer” etc.

[leopold99]

I should also point out that religion has failed to prove their hypothesis with anything like an experiment.
good point, but where have i mentioned religion in this thread?

Not True at all.

it's a fact billy.

[Hercules Rockefeller]

it's a fact billy.


No, it's not. You said....

...science has failed to explain how life arose.


Seeing as you like to talk about facts, the fact is that science has provided multiple explanations for how life arose.

[Billy T]

...fact is that science has provided multiple explanations for how life arose. 100% True.

Too bad we (scientists) can not narrow the number of choices down a little bit. - Just too many possibilities for abiogeneses are consistent with physics and chemistry.

Perhaps if we find life on other planets that will help reduce the number of likely possibilities.

The one I gave in post is only the easiest to follow, but I prefer the one that involves organic chemistry on the 2D surface of crystals in a flowing steam to the one I described in
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1389294&postcount=132

as that takes place in the 3D ocean of early Earth prior to free oxygen.

In 2D, the chance joining of chain molecules with one end hydrophilic and other hydrophobic (sort of like detergents in soap bubbles) to form a membrane is very rapid compared to membranes forming in the 3D oceans. The tumbling of the crystals by the flowing steam can play the same role as ocean waves to roll the membrane and trap amino acids inside. The crystals also help promote the attachment of the same ends to the crystal surface, but I forget if it is the hydrophobic or hydrophilic ends that weakly bind to the surface until mechanically separated from crystal by crystal rolling in the stream.

[superluminal]

i reiterate, science has failed to explain how life arose.
So what? And besides, that's not true. Science has lots of explanations, but as BillyT said, we can't narrow them down very satisfactorily yet.

The bigger question is why, given a distinct lack of evidence for exactly how life arose, would anyone invoke magical beings as an explanation? I know, I know. Some book told you so. That's frankly preposterous and worthy of a (rather dull) six year old.

No one claims proof of how life arose, only that the overwhelming lack of evidence for fairies and sky friends leads any sane person to the idea that the chemistry of organic molecules (amino acids, etc.) more than likely has something to do with it.

Maybe during the ongoing investigation into the genesis of life someone will discover nano-fairies at the root of it all and open up an entirely new branch of physics. Until then, studying the processes by which organic molecules form and combine to make more complex structures is a pretty smart thing to do.

Unless you have an agenda of lying and power maintenance over the weak-minded as your primary focus (i.e. creationists and I.Ders).

[leopold99]

Seeing as you like to talk about facts, the fact is that science has provided multiple explanations for how life arose.
and not a single one has produced life in the lab consistent with the early earth.

Too bad we (scientists) can not narrow the number of choices down a little bit. - Just too many possibilities for abiogeneses are consistent with physics and chemistry.
what are you saying now? there were a million different starting points for the early earth? according to what i learned in school science knows what the conditions were. have i been lied to again?

I know, I know. Some book told you so. That's frankly preposterous and worthy of a (rather dull) six year old.

i'll ask you just like i asked spidergoat, where have i used religion in this thread?

[Ophiolite]

Leopold, I think you are inherently an honest person, so it distresses me to see you lying to yourself.
There is a world of difference between not knowing the details of how life arose (which is an accurate description of the present situation) and not having even a broad understanding of the sort of processes and conditions that might lead to it. We have that broad understanding. This, it seems, is not good enough for you. I am disappointed.
One of the hallmarks of a scientific hypothesis is that it makes predictions. If those predictions are borne out, then hypothesis is strengthened. If they are not the hypothesis is modified, or abandoned.
One of the predictions made at an early stage by scientific hypotheses of abiogenesis was that the early Earth must have contained a mix of complex organic molecules. Guess what. Varied research has confirmed time and again that complex molecules arise very easily and a wide variety of environments, to the extent that we can state with confidence that the early oceans must have been rife with organic material.
Similar predictions, in relation to catalytic activity, the fspontaneous formation of cell membranes, and the like, have been confirmed by observation and research.
Science never provides all of the answers instantaneously. It is intellectually dishonest of you to demand that it should. What the research does do is confirm at each step that we are broadly on the right track. It also progressively shows us which turns off from that track are dead ends. We move one step back and two steps forward towards the goal of better understanding. There is absolutely nothing in what we know to date that would make us think we shall not eventually establish, beyond reasonable doubt, the means by which life arose on the Earth through abiogenesis.
You may continue to bury your head in the sand, equating incomplete knowledge with no knowledge. The greatest disservice you do in those circumstances is to yourself. I would rather that not happen.
Regards
Ophiolite

[leopold99]

timeline:
1953 miller urey experiment is performed. leads to the formation of amino acids.
this excites scientists so much that they agree that they will nail the origins of life in 10 years.

1963, 10 years have come and gone, scientist are now resigned to the fact that this origins business is a little more complicated than first thought.

another 10 years comes and goes, then another 10, and another, then yet another. science is no closer now than in 1953 at explaining how and where life originated.

[Ophiolite]

timeline:
1953 miller urey experiment is performed. leads to the formation of amino acids.
this excites scientists so much that they agree that they will nail the origins of life in 10 years.I am not responsible for the histrionics of a sub-set of scientists who are behaving like pre-kindergarten schoolchildren.
I have repeatedly pointed out that science is a methodology, not the people practicing the methodology. The people are humans, guilty from time to time of all the foibles and errors and stupidity of normal humans. The methodology of science eliminates this 'noise'. So don't go 'quoting' [without a single reference to justify your claim] the babbling of scientists behaving in an especially unscientific fashion. It has absolutely no relevance to the issue.

And you still haven't responded in a serious fashion to my earlier post, which I think was #152, in which I detailed several points of evidence for aspects of abiogenesis. Take your head out the sand bucket.

[spuriousmonkey]

Indeed, in 1953 the structure of DNA was proposed. How remarkable that seems it also signified that we still didn't know anything about the machinery of life.

In 1963 we still didn't really have molecular biology. Some of the groundbreaking techniques still had to be invented.

in 2003 we still don't know exactly how the machinery of life works. It seems rather unfair to demand that we know how it exactly evolved.

I'm sure people claimed in the 50s that cancer would be cured in 10 years. Actually I'm sure someone claimed it this year. Mark my words: cancer will not be cured in the next 10 years.

[Ophiolite]

. Mark my words: cancer will not be cured in the next 10 years.And yet, to continue your perspective, since the 1950s we have gained a vastly greater understanding of cancer and are able to cure some cancers with a much higher success rate than was possibel fifty years ago.
In the same way, as you point out, we have been progressively moving towards an understanding of abiogenesis. [Personally I think we are the stage of being able to define the questions we have to ask, but have answered very few of them.]

[leopold99]

And you still haven't responded in a serious fashion to my earlier post, which I think was #152, in which I detailed several points of evidence for aspects of abiogenesis. Take your head out the sand bucket.
yes i did, post #153
http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1394918&postcount=153

[Ophiolite]

That was not a serious response.

[spuriousmonkey]

And yet, to continue your perspective, since the 1950s we have gained a vastly greater understanding of cancer and are able to cure some cancers with a much higher success rate than was possibel fifty years ago.
In the same way, as you point out, we have been progressively moving towards an understanding of abiogenesis. [Personally I think we are the stage of being able to define the questions we have to ask, but have answered very few of them.]

You are so good with the didactic approach.

[leopold99]

okay, maybe you can explain this:
http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/site/content/view/51/65/

and yes, that was a serious response.
i'll even repeat it, science has no workable theories that explain the origins of life on this planet.

edit:
something else to chew on,
http://vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=969

more:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v18/i2/abiogenesis.asp

[spuriousmonkey]

okay, maybe you can explain this:
http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/site/content/view/51/65/



What about it?

You want me to criticize the DNA model of watson and crick, because it is highly inaccurate too.

[leopold99]

i put the facts out there for all to see.

[Pandaemoni]

I have no idea if we will ever have a "proof" of abiogenesis, even in principle let alone proof that it was the source of life on Earth. It would strike me as odd, though, for religious adherents to assume its impossibility. If you believe that the Biblical God created life, I think you have to concede that He went to some trouble to make the world look old and to make it seem as if life evolved. Part of His plan would seem to be to always provide room for naturalistic explanations for everything.

One of the traps certain religious people have fallen into in the past few centuries is to define God by reference to those things science couldn't explain. As science advanced, that became an ever shrinking set of "duties". Steadfastly maintaining that abiogenesis is impossible and that "God did it" if the only explanation for life, seems to setting oneself up for the same pratfall.

If one assumes naturalistic explanations for material phenomena (including life) then it seems inescapable that abiogenesis must have occurred at least once in the history of the universe, but it's important not to lose sight of the assumption. I think it's just as important for the religious to bear in mind their own assumptions and to recognize the vast array of naturalistic processes that one now sees as the mechanisms behind what was formerly attributed to the divine power. There's no compelling reason to assume, that this time, things will be different—that this time, no naturalistic explanation will ever be found."

Things will not be different, Charlie Brown. Lucy will pull the football away again. It's what Lucy does.

[leopold99]

who said anything about religion?

[spuriousmonkey]

i put the facts out there for all to see.

I don't see the facts. Highlight the facts. This is a discussion forum not a post links forum or a mindreader forum.

[Pandaemoni]

who said anything about religion?

You did cite to "Answers in Genesis". Also, unless you posit a supernatural origin for life, then a naturalistic one must exist (since we know life exists, subject to the more esoteric philosophical questions of whether or not we can be certain that our perceptions are "real.").

Barring some odd hypotheses that I have never heard actively promoted (namely of life having *always* existed in the universe), it seems that there was a point in time when there was no life. Then there was life. If you exclude supernatural origins for that change, then some natural process of abiogenesis must have occurred at least once. (It may have been in the form of "spontaneous generation" rather than in the chemical evolution of non-living molecules into functioning life, but it would still be abiogenesis.)

I'd be surprised if any opponents of abiogenesis have have an alternate theory that is not religious.

[leopold99]

I don't see the facts. Highlight the facts. This is a discussion forum not a post links forum or a mindreader forum.
read the links i posted.

You did cite to "Answers in Genesis".
yes, i see that now.
my argument is not religious in nature.

i seriously doubt if life arose at all on this planet given the facts.

[spuriousmonkey]

read the links i posted.



I did that. They support my view. I really can't read your mind.

[Pandaemoni]

i seriously doubt if life arose at all on this planet given the facts.

Fair enough. I specifically avoided addressing that point. (That was why I wrote, "at least once in the history of the universe," rather than "in the history of the Earth.") Life could well have been "seeded" here from elsewhere, thus there would have been no Earthly abiogenesis.

Still, one would imagine that life had to have originated somewhere and then spread itself around, including making its way to Earth. So (again, assuming a naturalistic explanation at all), it seems like there is still a place for abiogenesis at some stage.

[spuriousmonkey]

although is life evolving somewhere else, and then being seeded here not more unlikely than it evolving on earth?

Life still needs to evolve. Where?

Life needs to be transported. How?

Life needs to survive transportation and the process of seeding. How?

Life that evolved somewhere else needs to be adapted to a specific environment on earth. how?

It just adds more complexity and more problems.

[Pandaemoni]

although is life evolving somewhere else, and then being seeded here not more unlikely than it evolving on earth?

Life still needs to evolve. Where?

Life needs to be transported. How?

Life needs to survive transportation and the process of seeding. How?

Life that evolved somewhere else needs to be adapted to a specific environment on earth. how?

It just adds more complexity and more problems.

I agree with all of that, I merely acknowledge the possibility. It is a special case in which life could have taken root on this planet in a naturalistic manner without abiogenesis occurring here, and worth noting in that regard (if only to explain that it doesn't "eliminate" the need for a naturalistic abiogenic theory, it merely shifts the location of the abiogenesis to somewhere other than the Earth).

[Ophiolite]

i seriously doubt if life arose at all on this planet given the facts.
Who is talking about this planet? A review of my posts, for anyone anally retentive enough to care, will reveal a fondness for, if not a strong leaning to, pan spermia. The mechanisms at work, whether engaged on the Earth, another planet, or interstellar space, would be the same.
Until we have clearly established that there is a reasonable probability for the many complex steps required of abiogenesis to take place within the limited time frame accorded them on the early Earth, I shall have this leaning.

[Aside: welcome pandaemoni. Nice to see someone with a brain joining the forum. There are damned few of us.]

[SkinWalker]

Obviously life developed from non-life at some point in the universe. If not on this planet, on some other. Not knowing precisely how doesn't mean it didn't happen. The evidence of the cause, in this case, is the effect: life exists.

If not abiogenesis, what other explanation has as much supporting data and lines of tested hypotheses?

[Ophiolite]

Obviously life developed from non-life at some point in the universe. This only applies if the Big Bang theory, or comparable, is indeed an accurate reflection of the Universe's origin. Prior to BB theory it was perfectly respectable to believe the Universe and life had always existed.

[Billy T]

...what are you saying now? there were a million different starting points for the early earth? according to what i learned in school science knows what the conditions were.... Same thing I have been saying all along!

No, by “several different ways” for abiogensis to have occurred I mean just that. I.e. several different physical processes, which are fully consistent with physics and chemistry, have been suggested. At present time it is impossible to say which actually occurred. I fully outlined one of the easier to understand ways (step by step) but said already that I believe another, using crystals in flowing streams, is more likely. I have always been referring to the life we easily find on Earth (deep ocean vent life excluded).

I think life probably originated on Earth independently, at least twice, but admit one can not rule out a extra-terrestrial "seeding" (even an intentional one, by creatures much more advanced than humans) but that seems very unlikely compared to abiogensis on Earth.

When it comes to the strange life forms found near the deep ocean vents, that live on the chemical free energy (mainly the not fully oxidized sulpher) that comes out of these vents, I am inclined to think that had an Earth based abiogenesis entirely separate for the life in the air, surface waters and on the land, because it is not based on photosynthesis but chemical energy and very different in all it metabolic processes etc. By this, do not misunderstand. In the oxygen free early earth, I actually think that chemical energy is more likely than solar energy to have been the energy source developed first by the anaerobic cells that eventually evolved into the surface life forms we see today. These earlier anaerobic life forms, were mainly eliminated / poisoned* by the “shit”** from later also aerobic ones that initially could use both energy sources. (Darwin at work.)

Thus, I do agree that in vastly different environments, there may have been "different starting points" (at least two on Earth, I think) as you mentioned.
----------------
*Some found shelter from the poisonous oxygen in the ocean floor mud, some may have migrated to the deep ocean vents***, and some of their descendants now live in the guts of animals. (As they make methane and that causes Earth’s temperature to rise, which tend to remove the atmospheric free oxygen by chemical reactions, one could say they are trying to restore Earth to it original, [unpolluted from their POV], atmospheric conditions.)

**Now days we call that “shit” oxygen.

***If that “to the vents” migration did occur, then all life on Earth had a common origin. I do not know enough about the details of deep ocean life biochemistry to make a guess about this. Perhaps life’s abiogenesis was at the deep ocean vents. They were much more common back then. That is, it is even possible that near these vents is were all life on Earth began and the migration was to the surface layers of the ocean later. I am not up to date on the latest thinking on all this. There are just too many possible ways for life to have been generated by known physical and chemical processes on the Earth to follow this field.

[leopold99]

Obviously life developed from non-life at some point in the universe.
i disagree. it isn't obvious at all.
given the evidence it's easy to conclude that life does not come from lifelessness.

[Ophiolite]

So share with us Leopold, where did it come from?