which came first?

Chemical interactions are not random .. perhaps that's
not exactly what you meant though.I think RNA can reproduce itself ... it may even be
possible that there is some form of antecedent molecule
that had this capability? Or RNA formed first ...?Speculation, but I'm sure there are people looking into
these avenues.

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How does this experiment explain albiogenesis?

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It doesn't. I never said it did. This was an example of a replicating molecule, that's all. At present, no one can explain abiogenesis but no EVIDENCE points in any other direction either.

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Could the AATEs have been formed through non-intelligent processes?

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It is just chemistry. There is nothing magical about it. Given the right components and enough time, there is no reason to believe it couldn't happen. This brings us to the next point.

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Can AATEs be successfully created in simulated eviroments of the prebiotic earth?

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Well... the conditions of prebiotic Earth are a debate in themselves. What those conditions were have not been pinned down in detail, which makes this a tough question. However, quite a number of organic-ish molecules have been created in ( speculative ) simulated environments. What is the creationist response? "Doesn't count 'cause the environment is speculative." I hope you will not be so flippant. Science can only work with what it has. Basically, this objection amounts to criticising science for not having more information than it actually has. This is absurd.

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Before we conclude that similar process created life, shouldn't we know alot more?

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The article I cited describes an attempt at finding out more. There are many such attempts. The puzzle is also quite possibly the toughest in science at the moment.As far as concluding that similar processes are at the base of abiogenesis, if you want to base your conclusions on real live evidence, this is where it leads you. This is why so many scientists are working in this area. It may turn out that a totally different compound is a better candidate, but a self-replicator is the best bet at the moment. If you want to base your conclusions on faith, then all bets are off-- anything goes. That is the problem with faith.

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I asked a question, how did non-reproductive matter start reproducing?

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And I answered it. Some molecules just DO. Some molecules self-replicate. I found a reference to a 32 amino acid self-replicator. No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/People/kauffman/sak-peptides.htmlAmino acids are not terribly complicated in themselves, and have, in fact, been created in simulated prebiotic Earth environments as mentioned above. images.google.com/images...
{Shortened url display, to restore page width to normal - AM}Is it such a stretch to imagine that such a structure could form at least once on the Earth over a billion+ years?Ask a similar question. How does a catalyst "get to" create molecules? A catalyst will synthesize molecules over and over. How does it "get to" do that? Does this question make as much sense to you as "How does a molecule get to replicate?" Basically, it is the same question. A self-replicator can be thought of as a catalyst that synthesizes itself. It is just chemistry-- no magic.

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The relative age of a particular scientific field has no effect on the outcome of it's studies.

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hmmm..... so you haven't noticed a change in computer technology since the fifties? You haven't noticed that astronomy is quite different than it was 300 years ago? Of course there is a relationship! Do you think that anyone can hit the ground running? Do you think that a person founding a new field of study has all the information that the next generation of scientists will have? Sorry. No dice. You really need to think these things through.

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You cannot say that science will someday find a methodology of life, it may not.

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I can't say what the answers will be, until those answers are found. This should go without saying, but it doesn't. The faithful get to bypass this part. You mustn't confuse my belief that the evidence points toward abiogenesis via self-replicators, with a profound conviction. Science is always conditional upon evidence. So am I. And as it stands, there is evidence, at the very least, for the component parts of abiogenesis-- ie. various molecules, etc-- and no real reason that these parts could not form replicators similar to the examples given. And once you have a replicator, you have life. But there is no evidence for creation nor for any of the component parts-- ie. God, the supernatural, miracles, magic, etc. So there you go. Evidence, however feeble, or no evidence at all? Your choice.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 04-10-2003]

John,
It appears that we agree, at least somewhat. We both agree that there is much more progress needed in this field. Also, that 'faith' should not be a foundation for a logical argument, mainly because it is irrefutable. That said I think there is one major point of disagreement.I don't think that albiogenesis, as a complete system, has observational evidence, not even a feeble variety. No one has created (pardon the word) a living cell. There are many ideas on how this might happen, but none are observationally complete. Ergo, the confusion on prebiotic conditions; no one knows the necessary components for a non-personal creation of life, so any possibility is fair game.I really wish that Evolutionism (the atheistic variety) had a complete theory on this subject, it's fundamental to the whole argument. It's unfortunate that none has been developed. Bummer.EvanP.S. I'll post on the 'Proofs of God' discussion shortly.P.S.S. Is observational evidence the only reliable evidence? Sounds like thread material.

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I really wish that Evolutionism (the atheistic variety) had a complete theory on this subject, it's fundamental to the whole argument. It's unfortunate that none has been developed. Bummer.

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How fundamental it is depends on what the argument is. If one side of the argument is an old earth creationist who understands evolution occuring within living things over 3/4 of the existance of the earth then the only argument left is the intial "creation" of life way back there.If, however, one side is a young earth creationist who thinks that the only evolution that has occured is from the "kinds" of the ark then the abiogenesis issue of 3 billion or so years ago can be left alone until some understanding and agreement is reached on the things that are very well known.However, At the rate of intellectual progress of the YEC camp there is a chance that the more complete theory of abiogenesis may well be in place. It is however not going to be "complete" in the life time of anyone alive today. ToE and quantum mechanincs have been well developed and solid for decades and are by no means "complete". whatever that does mean.[This message has been edited by NosyNed, 04-10-2003]

There is such a thread in the Is It Science? forum. Basically the thrust of the argument is that in fact, the only evidence valid in scientific research is that which you can show to other people. If by "observational" you mean "seen directly by human eyes", well, not nessicarily. Video recordings of an event are evidence. Physical remains of an event are evidence. There's plenty of ways to show evidence of events that were not directly observed.Of course, the less direct your evidence, the more room for interpretation there is. This constitutes the bulk of scientific debate on any given hypothesis - whether or not one's conclusions are supported by one's evidence (as well as whether or not relevant evidence has been ommitted.)------------------
Epimenedes Signature: This is not a signature.

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Also, that 'faith' should not be a foundation for a logical argument, mainly because it is irrefutable.

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... skating on thin ice there, being a Believer and all, as you appear to be.

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I don't think that albiogenesis, as a complete system, has observational evidence, not even a feeble variety.

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You are moving the goalposts here, perhaps unintentionally. Gravity, as a complete system, has no observable evidence. That is, there are holes in the theory. The key phrase is "as a complete system." When you tag that qualifier on there, you essentially end up with a string of "and" statements. Logically, if any one of those "and's" is false or missing, then the whole structure is false. But you and I both know we can have partial answers to questions. We can solve a part of the problem, and usually do, before solving the whole. To claim otherwise would be dishonest. Yes? Yet this is what you are doing when you claim that there is NO evidence because the whole system hasn't been worked out. If you were putting together a jigsaw puzzle, is there no evidence indicating the final picture until the very last piece is in place? I hope you will answer no to that. Halfway through, there is some indication of the final image. And this indication can even be used as clues to accelerate the fitting of new pieces. But here you wish to claim differently?------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

John,
To clarify, I realize that 'complete' is kind of a fuzzy word, what am I meaning? I mean that since we only have partials of the 'puzzle' we don't know if they actually go together. Imagine taking a thousand 5000-piece puzzles and shuffling them. If you couldn't see any complete picture of these puzzles you wouldn't know which fragments were related to each other.I think the current state of albiogenesis is analogous to one of these fragments. Only we don't know if a complete puzzle is really there. Until we finish the whole puzzle we won't know if one exists. We can solve normal jigsaw puzzles because we know (or believe) they are solvable puzzles, without complete observational evidence. However, we don't know if albiogenesis is a solvable puzzle.And in regards to faith, I'm not really skating on thin ice. 'Faith' as an apologetic is a relatively recent phenomena, post-Kierkegaard (c.1850). Christian apologetics today has many other schools which are separate from the 'faith' school, many of them are far older. Personally, I belong to one of the other schools of thought.Evan

I don't think your analogy applies. What are your many jigsaw puzzles analagous to here in the real world? There's only one jigsaw puzzle of nature, not thousands. There aren't 5000 jigsaw puzzles of abiogenesis, only one. We're not looking for the origin of life on 5000 different planets, only this one.That being said, there's very little evidence left for how abiogenesis happened, because it happened billions of years ago. We may never know how it came about because you can't make deductions and inductions from evidence that no longer exists or hasn't yet been found. Even if we come up with a process for creating new life in the lab, that wouldn't mean that abiogenesis followed any similar process.Absence of evidence is not a flaw of science but is the result of the serendipity of events of the natural world over long periods of time. There was no guardian of the evidence of the first life. The evidence was left exposed to the forces of nature for billions of years, and we're lucky to have any evidence at all from the first billion years of life's history.Life must have had an origin, this we know. There had to have been a first life. That the evidence is now missing or too hidden or too subtle does not lead to the conclusion that abiogenesis did not happen.--Percy

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I mean that since we only have partials of the 'puzzle' we don't know if they actually go together.

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No, we don't. But as we get more parts we'll be able to tell what fits where. This objection is a reflection upon the poor information we currently have.The broader implication of your statement, though, is that we don't know if all of the pieces of the world fit together or not. Is this what you claim? That the pieces do not fit together?

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If you couldn't see any complete picture of these puzzles you wouldn't know which fragments were related to each other.

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As Percipient said, we don't have a thousand puzzles. We have one. There are no indications that there are several 'natures' intermingled willy-nilly. We basically DO know that all the pieces are related. What we don't always know is how they are related.

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I think the current state of albiogenesis is analogous to one of these fragments.

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Its 'abiogenesis' rather than 'albiogenesis.' You seem to consistently mispell that. This also greatly understates the research that has been done in the field. There are thousands of pieces, many of them connected to a few other pieces, though the whole is far from complete.

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However, we don't know if albiogenesis is a solvable puzzle.

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For it not to be solvable, you have to assume some kind of disjunct in the universe. Or, assume what we don't observe-- that some parts of the natural word don't interact with other parts. hmmmm...... in other words, everything we can point to exists in a relationship with everything else. That is what we observe. For abiogenesis to not be solvable-- in theory, at least-- you need to assume a break in these relationships. You need to assume that somehow physical stuff exists in no relationship to parts of the universe. Or that some force from outside acted on the physical world. This latter is what you assume, I presume. Where is the evidence for that outside force? There isn't any. Thus we come back to a statement I made earlier. You can base conclusions on evidence, however feeble, or on no evidence at all. I think you missed this the first time around. The evidence we have is for natural processes-- all of the evidence. We have NO evidence indicating anything else. Thus, work with the evidence -- physical -- or work with NO EVIDENCE at all.

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Christian apologetics today has many other schools which are separate from the 'faith' school, many of them are far older. Personally, I belong to one of the other schools of thought.

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I take it your rather poor effort in the 'proof of god' thread is indicative of one of these other schools?------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com