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Author Topic:   From protobionts to living cells
Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 5 of 48 (496743)
01-30-2009 8:58 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Cedre
01-30-2009 2:50 AM


Re: Embarrassing chinks in the evolutionary armor
Hello Cedre, welcome to EvC.
From its very foundation evolution bumps into some funny and downright embarrassing walls.
As will doubtless be pointed out to you by many other posters, Evolution says nothing about the origin of life, nor do problems with such an origin speak to its validity at all.
None-the-less, I and most Scientists would agree that the origin of life occurred through natural process.
It certainly happened, there is no doubt about that, we know for certain that there was no life on Earth 4.6 billion years ago, and there was by 3.5 billion years ago (and probably by 4 billion). The only question is how?
And we don't know. In fact, we're unlikely to ever know; there just isn't sufficient preserved evidence. The best we can hope for is a series of hypothesises that are coherent and plausible and supported by solid lab science and theory.
You mention UV as a problem. My preferred hypothesis for the origins of life is around hydrothermal vents: they provide a good substrate for organic molecules to gather on, a source of suitable chemicals and the heat to form organic compounds from them. And, relevant to your, point: almost no UV energy reaches to the deep oceans.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Cedre, posted 01-30-2009 2:50 AM Cedre has not replied

Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 12 of 48 (497281)
02-03-2009 9:29 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by Cedre
02-03-2009 7:18 AM


Re: From protobionts to living cells - a response to Bluejay and Mr Jack
Hi Cedre,
Firstly, I'm not a scientist, I did not mean to give that impression and I apologise for doing so.
It turns out that the best Mr Jack and his colleagues can do and have been doing since 1882 is twiddle with a series of hypothesises. The question that must be asked after such a long period of time has passed is, have scientist ever regarded the likelihood that evolution as a theory may not be as probable as it is presumed by the larger science community?
1882 seems an odd date? Why 1882?
People have been refining and researching all areas of science for decades, some have shown remarkable success, others less so. None-the-less it is simply not true to say that origin-of-life research has not progressed in the last 127 years. At the very least the problems to be solved have been identified and, in fact, credible solutions to many of these problems have yet to be found.
Mr Jack I fail to understand that in the face of such meager evidence to backup the notion of life emerging devoid of other living matter in vicinty from non-living matter how can you still make the claim
I'm not sure what you see as meagre. We know, with a great degree of certainty life existed on Earth 3.5 billion years ago, and with even more than it exists now. Equally, we know the Earth to be 4.6 billion years ago. Clearly life cannot have existed on the Earth before it was formed, no?
Now if you don't have something at one time, and you do have something at another time, you can say - for certain - that something changed in between. For life, we call that change abiogenesis. That abiogenesis happened is not in question.
As Huntard points out we don't know, for certain, that life first emerged on Earth; it could have come from elsewhere (Panspermia), but Panspermia only pushes the problem to another place and time. Somewhere, somewhen the first living thing had to emerge.
Now, you may protest that we can't be certain that it emerged through naturalistic process. And you'd be right, without knowing how it happened we can't be certain. However, there is a name for finding something and assuming Goddidit - the God of the Gaps. It's not a compliment.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by Cedre, posted 02-03-2009 7:18 AM Cedre has not replied

Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 45 of 48 (497439)
02-04-2009 6:35 AM
Reply to: Message 42 by Cedre
02-04-2009 6:20 AM


Re: Annafan
You have to face up to the facts if there is no known or at least plausible mechanism that could account for a spontaneous generation, we are left to conclude that a higher-intellegence is responsible for life.
A thousand years ago there was no known or at least plausible mechanism that count account for lightning so our Viking friends concluded it was Thor throwing hammers at the giants. They were wrong.
In fact, the history of science is littered with such examples, once upon a time people in their ignorance concluded that some supernatural entity or doodad was responsible for the things they couldn't explain. Time and time again they've been proven wrong by scientists working away at a problem until they find the answer.
What reason can you give to believe that in this case not knowing how it happened should lead to the repeatedly discredited conclusion that goddidit?

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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