Abiogenesis

I won't claim to be any expert, but here it goes:If I remember last midterm correctly, DNA only exists in living cells. One thing I want to know is how non-life can change into life without DNA? DNA's pretty complicated, kind of has the 'irreducible complexity' thing to it. Even if this 'non-living organism', if you will, suddenly started making DNA, it'd take a long time for even part of DNA to be completed, and from what I know about irreducible complexity, even if something has DNA it just doesn't think that far into the evolutionary future.And considering this non-living thing that is making the DNA doesn't have it yet, I don't see how it could just sprout the stuff without some kind of intervention, be it extraterrestrial or supernatural or whatever you want to call it. Not only that, but DNA is made up of proteins and acids. You can't just materialize those substances out of nowhere; they have to come from somewhere. Seriously, a non-living thing (a rock for example) can't just start rolling around gathering materials to create DNA.Even if the materials were somehow situated on it, from what I remember about the Miller/Urey experiment is that the 'building blocks of life' that didn't come from life just don't spawn anything.All this said, assuming I remembered my stuff correctly, it seems from this that something had to intervene. I'm not vouching for anything in particular to do it, but from this asserted evidence, and not from gaps in science but facts proven by it, it seems Abiogenesis has yet to be plausible when faced by this evidence.If this has already been pointed out please tell me, and fill me in with good information if possible. Thanks a bunch

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.

Good stuff, good stuff. I actually learned something tonight, unlike the nights when the only 'education' I get is homework.Still, while these are good experiments and brilliant scientific insights, there's a lot of 'might-have' s and 'could possible have' s.While I agree from the text presented in your essay and in what I've learned recently that the building blocks of life were definetely there and plentiful, there's still no sign of it actually creating life. I think #7 on your essay said that they managed to create proteins with amino acids. While that's definetly quite a discovery, protein just floating there by itself can't make anything living.The thing is, although we can make the conditions right to make the building blocks of life right before our eyes, has anybody actually created a LIVING cell from the building blocks of life? Untill I hear it's possible to create artificially, I'll have to say I can't see abiogenesis occuring naturally, and I think that's fair.But still, good essay with lots of links backing it. I'd give it an A.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.

"Even if life is created in the lab, it is still not PROOF (as in ultimate proof) that life arose via a precise mechanism. 3.5 billion years is a long time ago, and any models that we create are tentative and will not tell us the specifics of how life arose on Earth."That's a really good point: Just because something can happen doesn't mean it did. Guess that's something that both sides of the debate need to keep in mind.As for when (and if) we can create life from non-life, keep in mind that using a bunch of instruments and setting everything just right to prove that abiogenesis can occur naturally, without intelligent intervention is... kind of redundant. I'm NOT saying that such a success would invalidate natural abiogenesis, it's just that it wouldn't guarantee that its too often. But then again I guess one could argue that given enough time anything happens and so on.Either way, it won't effect my faith because I believe God plays by his own rules(chemical rules in this case) and created us through MOSTLY non-miraculous means. Then again, the materials would probably gather near or on the surface of the soil, and we were created from the 'Dust of the Earth'... but that's another speculation, and a whole other thread.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.

Agreed. However, I did state just after the end of that quote that it doesn't make the experiment irrelevant in the least.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.