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The Miller/Urey experimental results produced interesting results. However, to state that it gets us closer to creating life is an overstatement. Extrapolating scientific data toward a particular outcome is okay, it simply isn't scientific. You must admit at that time, evolutionists were excited. It gave them 'hope' that life could be created naturally without divine intervention. After 60 years, it still inspires evolutionists.
I think that you are missing the important point. The real issue of abiogenesis research is to understand HOW life could have formed naturally. The Miller-Urey experiment, by showing that amino acids could form naturally without life really did help there. However it would be very foolish to think that we could reasonably hope to duplicate the whole process from the formation of amino acids all the way through to early life in a single experiment. We are talking about a process that very likely took millions of years and may well have involved a number of different environments. We can better hope for a series of experiments that deal with the high points, like Miller-Urey or one of it's relatives.
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The focus of abiogenesis researchers, I believe, is to create life. Technically, I believe they only need to 'show' it is possible. Of course, anything short of actually creating life falls short of my expectations. Since life has not been created through this process, there is no scientific reason to believe this is possible.
As I've said I disagree that this is the focus, and I hope that the reasoning above explains why I don't think that a Miller-Urey experiment will ever be part of an experiment to create life. There likely will be experiments trying to create simple life, eventually, although they will be hampered by the problem of defining life in the first place. (Any experiment to create life will be trying to create something that just barely counts as life, and if there's no good idea of what would count for that then it's very hard to claim that the experiment conclusively created life even if it was a smashing success).
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I reject the notion that life can be created from non-life. There is no compelling evidence to even suggest this is possible. If you are a supporter of abiogenesis (it's intended goal) then you do so by 'faith'. I'm okay with faith-based science.
Of course there IS evidence that it is possible. The fact that there is no clear boundary between life and non-life. The fact that there is no clear boundary between living and non-living matter - an atom is the same whether it is part of a living being or not. The chemical synthesis of organic compounds - especially the Miller-Urey experiment. In fact, we can say that the formation of life from non-life IS definitely possible in principle, there is simply no real doubt on that point. The question is whether it is possible through natural means under the conditions that would have existed on the early Earth.
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Paul, a hypothesis is a proposal. The problem here, I think, is that you are ranking possibilities without conclusive evidence one way or the other. You are simply "conjecturing" and moving the discussion from science to philosophy. ( I don't mean to offend philosophers). Many university courses combine philosophy and religion.
Being a hypothesis doesn't mean that there isn't evidence supporting it - and the RNA World not only has evidence, it solved a major problem in abiogenesis. That is why I call it an advance.
And there is nothing wrong with ranking proposals in terms of the evidence, didn't I say that I was talking about accepting the best explanation we have ? If we had conclusive evidence for one explanation, we wouldn't need to do that. This isn't a purely philosophical issue, it is a scientific issue - scientists need to judge which avenues of research are likely to be productive. (If I might take an example from physics, the wide acceptance of String Theory isn't due to conclusive evidence - nobody has even come up with a good scientific test for it. And there's a bit of a backlash from some physicists because of that problem).
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I'm a Christian, and I like religion as much as the guy on the pew next to me. But regarding this forum, I would prefer to stick to science. Oh yeah! If I don't practice what I preach, please correct me. I'm very thick-skinned and imperfect, and forget what I wrote minutes earlier.
If you want to say that creationism is just religion and has no real scientific basis then I'm fine with that. But a lot of creationists disagree - they want to claim that science supports their view. Also, if the scientific evidence does support alternatives, and creationism relies on religious belief for support then you should be hardly surprised if people who do not share those beliefs prefer other alternatives which do have scientific support - and that it would be unfair to label that preference "dogmatic faith".