Abiogenisis by the Numbers

No, I think it did. I see absolutely no evidence that RisenLord has bothered to aquaint himself with the science he's so casually dismissing, or that he even feels it's necessary. Instead, he'd rather speculate on the motives of scientists, when, to all evidence, he's completely incapable of understanding how scientists go about their jobs.I'll continue in the same vein until RisenLord's actions make it clear that, like the rest of us, he's here to reduce ignorance, not offer misapprehension as fact.

Then what do they do when they desolve?

In those cases, their hydrogen atoms hydrogen-bond to water molecules, and their nitrogen and/or oxygens form hydrogen bonds with hydrogens on other water molecules.Oh, and the carbon currently in the Sun amounts to about 109 earth-masses. Lessee, times 10^11 solar masses in our galaxy alone, times....And Crash, I doubt there's any need for either you or I to be tacky with our new friend. He/she is rapidly weaving the web that he/she will soon be trapped in, and doesn't appear to even need any help doing it.This message has been edited by Coragyps, 11-12-2004 10:33 PM

And we've never observed anything happening from its genisis, either. And it led to mathematical conclusions which, at the time, had no evidence to support it....... Physics is hardly narrow......and the reason math plays a greater roll in physics than many other disciplines is because there are many elements related the physics that can't be tested, so you have to depend on the math. Same goes for abiogenisis. Really? Wow. I'm suprised an atheist would make that admission, because killing the validity of string theory surely kills the validity of the only existing theory which can naturalistically explain a habitable universe......... You're right, my mistake.Still, point was, I think everyone can agree that first life was surely more complex than a single protein molecule........ Of course you did. That's the way the chemicals react. And I'm sure this lipid bilayer then filled right up with RNA and started replicating and metabolizing......Oh, wait, that latter part didn't happen, did it? Which is why the cell structure which lipids form isn't any greater evidence for abiogenisis than soap bubbles forming is for it.

That's why I referred to the supposition as ridiculous.......

Still don't.

Are you getting all your info from Answers in Genesis, or something even worse? Miller is still active in the field, and his group is still making discoveries! There have been several "breakthroughs", including the COS reaction I mentioned above.

And no preexisting bonds are broken in the process, I assume........I see. I didn't know that. Thanks for the info. What are the implications of these chemical reactions for or against either of our arguments?BTW, that little tidbit about amino acids was just a side note, nothing to do with my real argument.

Like I said earlier, if these breakthroughs fall under the category of "hey, we found some more goop that we also find in cells", I hardly regard that as a breakthrough.

I totally don't understand what you mean in this sentence. "Genisis"? You mean "genesis"? Or "Genus"? No, actually, there were a number of bizarre observations that relativity immediatly explained, such as the procession of Mercury's orbit. Um, no. When we come to conclusions about abiogenesis, its because of the evidence of observation and experiment, not from mathematics. There are a number of competeing theories besides String Theory that purport to account for the initial conditions of the Big Bang. And you appear to have misunderstood my point. I didn't say that string theory was wrong. In fact, that's why it currently isn't really a theory at all; there's no way to know if it's wrong. We have a truckload of competiting theories that explain why there was a Big Bang; the problem isn't that none of them are right, it's that we don't know which ones are wrong. Without a very, very clear idea of what you mean by "living thing", I don't think we can agree on that at all. To me, "life" merely describes a certain kind of chemistry. A single protein molecule could easily manage the chemical reactions necessary to be considered, if not alive, then a precursor to life.The origin of life is, ultimately, a question of chemistry, not biology. No matter where you draw the line, historically, between living and non-living, you'll find that living thing decended from the interactions of previously-existing complex molecules. Where did those complex molecules come from? Through non-living, but complex, chemistry building on simpler molecules.Another way to define life might be to define it as those things upon which evolution acts. Again, a single population of protein molecules, each catalyzing formation of copies of themselves from naturally-occuring polypeptides, could be considered living - it could certainly evolve. As a matter of fact, they almost immediately started performing complex chemical interactions in budded-off vescicles; interactions that could not occur in the surrounding matrix, interactions that led to an expansion and bifurcation of these bilayer membranes. So, yes, they did start replicating and metabolizing. Of course, the biggest difference between lipid bilayer membranes and soap bubbles is that bilayer membranes are self-assembling, like the organelles of the cells of living things. Soap bubbles are not.

Not when you are talking about probabilities. You need some knowledge about conditions and complexity to start talking probabilities.However, the ID camp often looks at the composition of a single living cell today and tries to come up with a simple probability of it forming randomly. Since the "first life" was likely not a fully intact "modern" cell, probabilities calculated based on that assumption are pointless strawmen. No one on the chemical abiogenesis side is arguing spontaneous generation of a complete cell. I don't agree with that at all, mainly because I don't think the first life needed any protein at all.The interesting thing about RNA is that it can act as a genetic template, and it can have catalytic activity like protein enzymes (including acting as a polymerase to replicate RNA). Since it is an imperfectly replicating template, mutation and selection can act upon it increase its stability and activity (survival).RNA strands also form from strictly chemical processes.Because of these characteristics, short RNA replicators seem the most likely "first life". Later association with lipid micelles would have created the first cell.When the complexity of the first life drops from an intact, protein-synthesizing cell to a short RNA strand, so does the probability of first life forming.
_____________Edited to add: Here is an online article that goes into specific calculations and much greater detail regardng the above, as well as providing references: Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics,and Probability of Abiogenesis CalculationsThis message has been edited by pink sasquatch, 11-13-2004 02:54 AM

I'm sorry, but what a load of poop you were able to crap out there. Amazing how the ego of such people are getting bigger and bigger every time.

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Hate world.Revenge soon!

And you'll take Behe's word on it over what Crick himself has actually said?From what I have read Crick's objections were more along the lines that he felt some the particular elements used by cells were found in proportions which suggested an extraterrestrial origin, but as the quote I presented from 'Life itself' states he was quite open to the possibility that the specific microenvironment in which life arose may have had such proportions.In fact the element I have seen talked about most in this respect is molybdenum, rather than similar and generally more abundant elements such as nickel and cadmium ,being being so biologically important. This may be explained by the higher levels of abundance of molybdenum in seawater.TTFN,WK

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You'll have to shell out the bucks for one of Dembski's book for specific calculations.......though Dembski and ID proponents in general are known for their meticulous work, and I haven't heard any objections to such numbers that really hold any weight

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You must be joking.Firstly it is up to YOU to support your claim that the probability is too low. You can't copmplain that nobody has offered any argument against the specific claims when you won't even present the details for examination.Secondly Dembski is NOT known for "meticulous work". Just the opposite - his attempt to apply his own methods to a bacterial flagellum in No Free Lunch was a complete disaster. I'm not aware of ANY complex probability calculations from Behe but he's already suggested replacing his definition of "irreducible complexity" with a completely different one because the original version wasn't as good at ruling out evolution as he thought. Hardly what we would expect from a meticulous worker.The way you've set up this argument is that the calcullations you CLAIM exist have been placed beyond criticism. YOu want us to just accept your word for it. You don't place the work on the line for examination on criticism. On the other hand that is exactly what you demand from us. Since there aren't ANY valid calculations it pretty much guarantees that you will "win". That is neither scientific nor honest.

I agree, Risenlord. That's the reason creationism cannot be considered science. Creationism assumes the existence of a creator, which is an inherently unprovable assertion.A creationist looks at evidence and says, "Okay, we know god created everything. How does this fit?"Science looks at evidence and says, "What does this tell us?"Which is making assumptions to support dogma?