Converting raw energy into biological energy

Let me ask you this, Rob.What is the simplest form of life?A bacterium?In that case, you're right. We haven't created life from simple precursors. We're close, but there's work to do.We have, however, the bits and pieces that are necessary:Polymerization, RNA ligases, RNA capping, RNA phosphorylation, RNA cleavage, ribose formation, nucleoside formation, peptide bond formation, amide bond formation, membrane formation.Remember. Amide and peptide bonds are the only thing standing between a puddle of chemicals and a protein. Sugars and nucleosides are the only things standing between that very same puddle and a quaternary code.And, contrary to your assertion that we've only "postulated" "insufficient" components, I would remind you that a virus is nothing more than a tiny package of DNA encapsulated in an envelope. And a prokaryote isn't much more complicated than a virus: some DNA, some RNA, some plasma and a membrane.Hardly the millions of components you seem to think necessary for an "organism".

Did I call it or what?

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I've done everything the Bible says, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff! -- Ned Flanders

So what? you've been told multiple times before that science doesn't "prove" anything, science is tentative and always will be.

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Live every week like it's Shark Week!
Just a monkey in a long line of kings.
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist!
*not an actual doctor

What you're doing is burying the public in exclamations of incredulity and assertians of insurmountable problems.What molbiogirl is doing is showing that abiogenesis is quite credible and that so far the problems don't seem all that insurmountable.Added by edit:Rob, if the problem is as immense as you make it out to be, wouldn't you expect it to take a lot of time and effort before it's figured out? And the bigger the problem, the longer (and more effort) it'll take to solve it?Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

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I've done everything the Bible says, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff! -- Ned Flanders

Rob, care to tell me how all the water gets up on top of the mountains for it to run back down again in a river? You know, Rob, that it has also yet to be shown that there is an intelligence elsewhere. Unless, like Ray Kurzweil, you consider evolution to be a pseudo-intelligent process (literally a 'blind watchmaker'). But that is beside the point.

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Help to inform the public - contribute to the EvoWiki today! What do you mean "You can't prove a negative"? Have you searched the whole universe for proofs of a negative statement? No? How do you know that they don't exist then?!

molbiogirl: And what use is a virus without a whole organism (or cell) with which it can replicate?

Chiroptera: No, I'm reminding you of that facthere. It's still a highly theoretical excercise at this point (thank you Leslie Orgel).As I said in the OP some of you have moved well beyond the evidence.I'm not the one taching in classrooms and saturating the public market with exagerations of theoritical maybe's and models of possibility and selling it as fact by shear repetition of the term evolution, millions of years et al. My own kids have books for preschoolers that talk constantly of evolution. You guys have the PR battle locked down tight!Good for you...I talk to people about this subject you know... and to question evolution almost immediately makes me a complete nut job in most minds (even Christians). Where are you coming from?

Doddy:Evaporation and convection...Doddy: Has the discovery of the quaternary digital code called DNA changed anything? And I mean one that actually corrosponds to a given organism and functions as a whole system... DNA, RNA, ATP, ADP, etc do not an organism make... It's a whole system.What is the smallest number of components known in the smallest living, autonomous, and self replicating life form?

Dr. Jones: Now there's a comment you won't hear on the Discovery Channel...Actually theory is tentative... emperical evidence can prove quite a bit.But I wonder if Einstein and Openheimer would have appriciated that comment of yours after the bomb worked?Edited by Rob, : No reason given.Edited by Rob, : No reason given.

molbiogirl: Yes... my own conscious was convicting me of possible exageration.So, as I asked Doddy, what is the smallest number of parts needed for a self replicating, autonomous organism (bacteria)?

In what way? Refusing to just throw up our hands and agree that you have a special path to the truth just because there are some unanswered questions? That's not moving "beyond the evidence" -- in fact, "moving beyond the evidence" would be jumping to the conclusion that "God must have done it!" despite the utter lack of evidence for such a conclusion.- Damn those secular humanists for exposing your kids to information that goes against your most cherished myths! You oughta sue.

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I've done everything the Bible says, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff! -- Ned Flanders

Who the fuck cares what the Discovery channel (or any other example of science dumbed down for the masses) says? Emperical evidence proves nothing other than the existance of said evidence. Einstein and Oppenheimer would have know before the bomb worked that their theories were tentative and they would have known even after the bomb worked that their work was still tentative, because they were scientists.and this is all off-topic so I won't being replying to anymore off-topic stuff from you in this thread.Edited by DrJones*, : taggus fixus

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Live every week like it's Shark Week!
Just a monkey in a long line of kings.
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist!
*not an actual doctor

Chiroptera: There is tremendous evidence for the design inference. Intelligence can create all kinds of languages and codes, most importantly the digital ones.If SETI researchers received a particular kind of code, would you agree with them that it proved intelligence even though we had not witnessed the intelligence physically?You guys keep ignoring the power of this argument. It is emperical. Not in the case of extraterrestrial contact of course, but in terms of intelligent human languages.You need to watch clip 6 and 7 here: AbiogenesisScroll down to the man writing on the chaulkboard, then click the play button on the YouTube link. As soon as the frist clip is done playing, click the menu button in the lower left hand corner. Then click on clip 7. Watch all 7 clips if you want the full context.Edited by Rob, : No reason given.

Because it is a dumb argument.DNA is not a code in the same sense that language is, nor is it a language. The whole argument now falls flat.

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I've done everything the Bible says, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff! -- Ned Flanders

Chiroptera: Explain the difference for us dummies... but you may want to do it here: http://EvC Forum: The "Digital Code" of DNA -->EvC Forum: The "Digital Code" of DNAOr you could point to your participation in the given thread.