Transition from chemistry to biology

Hi, Eial.Welcome to EvC!Can I suggest that you read this recently closed topic on the subject of abiogenesis/biogenesis? It is a long thread, and spends a fairly lengthy amount of time arguing definitions, but there is a great deal of good information in that thread about abiogenesis and the "law" of biogenesis.

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-BluejayDarwin loves you.

Hi, Kid.As per my promise on the Birthday Thread... You get a two-fer: I agree with both of these. Happy birthday!!----- You're an arrogant dick.----- So, if I kept two parakeets in a cage, and they lived for ten years without giving birth to zebra finches, does that falsify evolution?Edited by Bluejay, : I only really needed to insult him once. Sorry, AOkid.

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-BluejayDarwin loves you.

Hi, AlphaOmegakid. I didn't say anything about eggs or China.How come my birds-in-a-cage example is irrelevant, yet an experiment of a parallel design falsifies abiogenesis?From now on, whenever you bring up Pasteur, I'll just reply with the same line: "What does this have to do with the price of eggs in China?"It fits just as well.----- No, you used his baby steps analogy to insult him. There was no connection between the baby steps analogy and the argument you were making, so it was a pointless addition by you to get in a cheap shot at Onifre. This is probably why the moderators don't step in when other people insult you.Besides, I didn't complain about an ad hominem: I complained about your arrogance. Stop arguing strawmen. Edited by Bluejay, : No reason given.

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-BluejayDarwin loves you.

Hi, Traste.Although, if you had looked hard enough, you certainly would have found this written multiple times in the threads I linked you to from the Pilbeam thread, I think you may still benefit from reading this one more time:Spontaneous generation was a hypothesis about how organisms reproduce. It suggested that some animal reproduction (ontogeny) was accomplished by the environment, instead of by sex or cell division. That is, some animals were born from leaf litter, water, rotting carcasses or dirt. This concept calls for a mechanism that allows decaying matter to be transformed into an animal by means of a pre-existing template.Abiogenesis is the common idea underlying many hypotheses about the origin of the very first life form. In simplest terms, "abiogenesis" basically means that, at some point, there was a first life form, and, since no life predated that life form, that life form could only have come from something other than a pre-existing life form. This concept has no templates: it is a haphazard compilation of random elements into something workable.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Traste.I realize you're getting a lot of pressure from a lot of people, so I understand your frustration. But, let's keep it calm and rational, okay? I don't know who Pilbeam is. I'd never heard of him before. I was referring to the first thread you posted on at EvC (here is a link to that thread), which had something to do with quote-mining and somebody named Pilbeam.----- Is English your first language? This sentence gives me a headache.Stephen Meyer was never designated as the official spokesman of the scientific community, so I am not duty-bound to regard his words as sacred. I am also under no obligation to concede an argument because you were able to find somebody who disagrees with me. So, instead of providing the words that somebody once said, I prefer to provide logical argumentation of my own divising.For example, let's review once again the concepts of spontaneous generation and abiogenesis, in the hopes that you will be able to see that Louis Pasteur tested one of those hypotheses, and not the other.If you and I were to see spontaneous generation happen right now, we would see, for example, a lump of mud, without provocation, metamorphose into a bullfrog.If you and I were to see abiogenesis happen right now, we would see one set of molecules become associated with another set of molecules. That's it.Spontaneous generation is a way for animals to reproduce, and abiogenesis is a way for chemistry to gradually become complex enough to perpetuate itself.----- I don't understand: why do you think that this is necessary?

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Traste.Please use quote boxes: it makes it easier to know what you're responding to. You've reversed the methodology of science, Traste. Scientists learned long ago that you can't really prove anything with 100% certainty.We design experiments to disprove our hypotheses. If our experiment fails, we regard this as evidence that our hypothesis is valid. And, the hypothesis remains valid until one of our experiments succeeds in disproving it.-----There are two possibilities for the origin of life: spontaneity (randomness) and teleology (purpose).Ironically, spontaneous generation was a teleological hypothesis: it proposed a directed, consistent transformation of one entity (dead matter) into another.The disproof of teleological ideas like spontaneous generation is actually support for spontaneity-based ideas like the Theory of Evolution and abiogenesis.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Peg. You're thinking about this all the wrong way.Nothing is keeping those chemicals reacting except the fact that all those chemicals are reacting in such a way as to promote one another’s actions. As long as the conditions are suitable for a reaction to take place, it will take place. And, our bodies contain vast networks of reactions that maintain suitable conditions for other reactions to take place. It’s all just a delicate balancing act.Life is simply the condition of relative stability among those chemical reactions. Death results when the stability is lost and cannot be regained.Did you ever watch I Love Lucy? Remember the famous episode where Lucy and Ethel had to work at a chocolate factory, wrapping chocolates while they passed by on a conveyor belt? Once one chocolate got by them, they were behind in their work, and, from then on, they had to struggle to regain control. Eventually, the chocolates began piling up, and the ladies lost control.What happened there? Everything they needed to get the chocolates wrapped was there---Lucy, Ethel, the chocolates, the wrappers, and the conveyor belt. All the necessary ingredients were present, but the system failed anyway.And, we see this kind of failure all the time in the real world. For example, my father’s company used to be highly competitive on the market, but became incapable of supporting the sales and shipping networks its competitors had, and was eventually bought out.If the intelligence and creativity of human beings is not sufficient to maintain a system indefinitely, why do you feel that molecules would be more proficient?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Peg.You may not know it, but what you are presenting is one of the oldest theories of aging. It's called the "rate of living theory," and it has not been taken seriously for quite some time now. Bats live about three times as long as mice, but have similar metabolic rates. That puts bats above us. In fact, I think you'll find that humans aren't actually all that unusual on the metabolism-lifespan curve. Observations like this is why the rate-of-living hypothesis is no longer in favor with scientists.But, you're right: this has little to do with the topic of this thread.-----Really, the bottom line is that life continues only as long as the network of chemical reactions that comprise it feed each other efficiently and stably. Death is simply the point when certain vital chemical reactions fail. But, in truth, many less vital reactions fail long before death actually occurs.The accumulation of failing reactions is what causes life to end. If there was no failure, there would be no death.Of course, many chemical reactions can continue after death has occurred (such as the oxidation of hemoglobin), so it's obvious that these reactions do not require life in order to happen. All they require is the right conditions. When a large number of reactions can provide the right conditions for each other to happen and perpetuate, we call it "life."

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Taz.Cool.But, Forum rule #5: And: Re: Why we killed "reply quote"

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Peg. Pasteur was not wrong, and no one has yet said that he was. The problem is that most people do not understand what it was that he was not wrong about.What Pasteur did was leave rotting meat in a sealed flask for a matter of months. This is not a sufficiently long period of time to evaluate the fate of the meat a billion years from now.By analogy, is a few months a sufficient time period to determine everything that will happen to a developing human baby throughout its lifetime?Drawing conclusions about what will happen several million years (or even just several decades) from now based on what you see happening over a period of mere months is bad science.I do not feel that Pasteur was guilty of bad science. He did not intend his experiments to have far-reaching implications about what will happen millions of years in the future: he only intended it to test a hypothesis whose effects would be seen within a few months.-----The idea of spontaneous generation (which Pasteur disproved) is not the same as the idea of abiogenesis (which Pasteur did not---nor ever intended to---disprove). Spontaneous generation was a hypothesis about reproduction: it stated that populations of modern animals were replenished by a cycle of spontaneous reassembly that repeated itself regularly in nature. It stated that rotting meat was one of the regular developmental phases in the life cycle of a fly.It was not a hypothesis about whether chemicals could gather into increasingly complex networks of interactions which might one day be called "life."Pasteur's experiments were powerful, not because of what didn't happen in the sealed flasks, but because of the comparison between the open and sealed flasks.Maggots only appeared in the open flasks, to which flies had access. By comparing open flasks to sealed flasks, Pasteur showed that flies reproduce by laying eggs, not be spontaneously morphing from meat.The whole time, the experiment was only about the method of reproduction utilized by flies, not about whether or not life arises from non-life.Edited by Bluejay, : "Whos" is bad English

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, TheMasterDebator.Welcome to EvC, by the way! Abiogenesis has never been completely recreated in a laboratory setting.If and when it does finally happen, your description will probably fit. But, until then, it would be prudent to use future tense instead of past tense.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Traste. All you had to do was read four messages upthread, and you would have realized that this question was already answered (Message 324). But, instead, you decided to drag out the thread for another round.Please keep up with the thread, Traste.-----Let me try again.Spontaneous generation is about REPRODUCTION: it is the idea that nature reproduces organisms as if from a factory. It suggested a repeating process, which regularly churned out copies of the same organism. Basically, it's the belief that nature is a maggot-cloning machine. Pasteur showed that organisms produce their own offspring, thus falsifying spontaneous generation.Abiogenesis is the idea that systems of chemical reactions can increase in complexity until they are complex enough to be considered "life." It does not suggest that organisms are the product of a natural cloning machine. Pasteur did not set up his experiment to touch on this.Here are some things that Pasteur did not do in his experimental set up:

1. He did not attempt to recreate the chemical conditions from the origin of life.
2. He did not give his experiment a long enough time to produce life through the gradual chemical processes proposed by abiogenesis.
3. He did not provide sufficient energetic input to power the chemical reactions proposed by abiogenesis.

And, there are probably plenty of others.The bottom line is that one experiment with negative results does not rule out everything that shares some similarity with the idea falsified.Edited by Bluejay, : "Agiogenesis" has too many G's for my tasteEdited by Bluejay, : "Som" is not an English word.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Traste. Holy crap!

1. A premise is a beginning assumption, not a conclusion. Premises are not evidence. You're making it pretty obvious that you haven't actually studied logic, Traste.
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2. Did Pasteur test "every organic thing"? Did he even come close? How can the observation that flies don't come from meat translate into the conclusion that nothing living ever came from anything not living?
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   This is like saying, "tigers don't eat grass: therefore, nothing eats grass"; or "beetles don't build airplanes: therefore, nothing builds airplanes"; or "Chevrolet trucks get bad gas mileage: therefore, all American trucks get bad gas mileage."
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3. I hate to be a prick, but you can't prove an experiment experimentally. You can support a hypothesis experimentally. While this is only nit-picking your literary skills, your inability to comprehend and use scientific and logical terms tells me that you don't really know what you're talking about.

-----May I humbly submit that this thread has run its course?Edited by Bluejay, : dBCodes and extra sentence in point #3.Edited by Bluejay, : My inability to utilize adverbs, instead of adjectives, to modify verbs tells me that I am not qualified to teach writing classes.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, traste. "Holy crap" is just an expression of surprise.----- What?----- You are using the term premise incorrectly, Traste.Premises are not proven nor tested. You only call something a premise if you are not going to test it. If you are going to test it, you call it a hypothesis.You have been insulting people’s knowledge of logic when you do not even understand the most basic terminology used in logic.----- My logic? Here’s what you said just above that: Here is your logic: In this case, statement X is come only from eggs.And, here is my parody of your logic: In this case, statement X is do not eat grass.It is your logic. You are trying to derive a universal conclusion from Pasteur’s limited data set, just as I was trying to derive a universal conclusion from my limited data set of tigers.When a scientist has a little bit of data, he predicts that his conclusions will apply to areas where he has not tested it. But, you cannot say that a prediction based on evidence from sample A is scientifically valid for sample B.Evidence that many important steps of abiogenesis are possible gives us reason to suspect that all life from pre-existing life may not be universal---at least enough reason to entertain further investigation.Adhering to Pasteur’s meat-spoilage experiments as the pre-eminent authority on the origin of life is pointlessly dogmatic and counterproductive.----- Actually, I speak and write two languages, one of which happens to be Mandarin Chinese. I’ll leave you to figure out what the other one is. I can also understand and read Spanish, but, whenever I try to speak it, it always comes out as Chinese.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Traste. How is it pretentious to be confused by a self-contradictory statement?You say that I believe in Intelligent Design, but am trying to disprove Christian creationism by appealing to evolution.
I don't understand what you mean!
What gave you the impression that I believe in an Intelligent Designer?----- Which of my beliefs does statement X challenge?
You just told me above that I believe in an Intelligent Designer.
Is this the belief you are speaking of?
Does Pasteur's experiment challenge my alleged belief in an Intelligent Designer?
Or, are you admitting that you were wrong about me believing in an Intelligent Designer?----- No, this method is called induction, not deduction.Deductive reasoning goes like this: Inductive reasoning goes like this: This is now the third logical term you have misused in as many posts.Science uses what is called a "hypothetico-deductive" system of reasoning. An idea derived from inductive logic is called a "hypothesis." A hypothesis is not considered authoritative, and cannot be used as evidence. It must go through deductive testing before it becomes authoritative.The testing of the "omne vivum ex ovo" hypothesis includes Miller-Urey and other studies like it. In fact, this testing is still going on, and what that testing is showing is that a lot of things that we thought couldn't self-assemble actually can. This means that chemical systems can gain in complexity over time.Thus, we no longer hold to the idea that Pasteur's statement is universal. Because that statement was derived from inductive reasoning, we are not contradicting any established, authoritative science in rejecting it.This means that we are now working with a new inductive hypothesis, which is that, since some biomolecules can self-assemble, others also can.I will be the first to admit that we may find some insurmountable barrier to abiogenesis, at which point we will have to consider the possibility that the Traste-Pasteur Hypothesis is correct. But, current data gives us reason to believe that such a barrier does not exist, thus, it does not make logical sense to doggedly adhere to the belief that the barrier does exist.Give it time, and we'll know for certain.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.