Abiogenesis Progress

pitabread said:

If only we had some sort of technology capable of scouring the internet for things of interest and returning results in a matter of seconds. Oh well, maybe someday someone will invent it.

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Citations are a well known method. Googling is not scientific.

SkyWriting said:

Citations are a well known method. Googling is not scientific.

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You missed the point.

pitabread said:

Considering the sheer size and scope of the universe, it seems a lot less remarkable. In fact, if the universe was created solely for the existence of life on this one planet, it's really just a lot of wasted space.

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Not when you have to figure the sheer probabilty of it all happened on its own. In a lab, it will always be an intelligently designed experiment. You add the right chemicals and gasses, throw in some sand, spark it with lightning (or whatever the whole experiment is), knowing that it's possible some lipid bubbles and proteins will form.

I used to be a staunch atheist and heavily into evolution. That all changed after finding Christ and now none of what I believed before makes no sense to me.

Starting from the Big Bang, the odds of singularity, A medium sized star with the perfect size of earth, at the perfect distance from the sun, perfect gravity, atmosphere, water, etc.

Evolutionist Harold Morowitz estimated the probability for chance formation of even the simplest form of living organism at 1/10,340,000,000. So, the probability of forming a simple cell by chance processes is infinitely less likely than having a blind person select one specifically marked grain of sand out of an entire earth filled with sand.

That's just life forming. Each individual step to get to that point is beyond mathematically probable on its own. When you add up each step that has to happen before it, and all that has happened until now with intelligent species like humans, where the human eye itself is too complex to have formed by chance, much less an entire bodily system and consciousness.

pitabread said:

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You missed the point.

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Googling is not scientific?

Saucy said:

Not when you have to figure the sheer probabilty of it all happened on its own.

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Except we don't know the beforehand probability of it happening; it's almost impossible to account for all the possible variables. And the probability after the fact is always going to be 1, since it's already occurred.

I've always viewed those probability exercises as a bit of a pointless exercise. It's like calculating the probability of your parents meeting and giving birth to you. Sure, you could try to calculate the odds, but what's the point of doing so?

In a lab, it will always be an intelligently designed experiment.

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Oh, the irony. Creationists are long in criticizing scientists for not being able to reproduce evolution or abiogenesis in the lab. But then if it is reproduced in the lab, they can then cry "but it's an intelligently designed experiment, it's doesn't count!"

I used to be a staunch atheist and heavily into evolution.

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What does being "heavily into evolution" mean?

Evolutionist Harold Morowitz estimated the probability for chance formation of even the simplest form of living organism at 1/10,340,000,000.

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That's not actually true. You might want to do some research into that little factoid, because it's not actually what you think it is.

SkyWriting said:

Googling is not scientific?

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Who suggest Googling was scientific? Do you still not understand the point?

Hint: See this post: Abiogenesis Progress

SkyWriting said:

Yes. It defined as the language of ignorance.
Ignorance is also clearly defined, for some season.

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Laugh if you like, but the concept of randomness is important to engineers. It is the basis of many critical analytical techniques used in quality control and inferential statistics. There are manufacturing processes which are based on random variation and selection, and computers are designing electronic circuits in the same way. If you own a scientific calculator you will likely find a random number generator as one of its useful functions.

Saucy said:

Evolutionist Harold Morowitz estimated the probability for chance formation of even the simplest form of living organism at 1/10,340,000,000. So, the probability of forming a simple cell by chance processes is infinitely less likely than having a blind person select one specifically marked grain of sand out of an entire earth filled with sand.

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He wasn't an Evolutionist (whatever that means). He was a Professor of Biophysics at Yale University.

But here he testifying, as a scientific expert witnesses, for the plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of Arkansas's Balanced Treatment for Creation Science and Evolution Science Act of 1981 in McLean v. Arkansas. Maybe we can see what he thinks about probability...

Q: Now, you have been explaining why the creation science dual model approach to the teaching of origins of life on this planet is unscientific. Is there any other aspect of the creation science treatment of the origins of life on this planet that is similarly unscientific?

A: Well, I find the use of probabilistic arguments to be somewhat deceptive.

Q: Would you explain what you mean?

A: In general in the creation science literature, they start out by assuming, by making statements about the complexity of living systems. These will generally be fairly accurate statements about the complexity of living systems.

They then proceed on the basis of probabilistic calculations to ask, what is the probability that such a complex system will come about by random. When you do that, you get a vanishingly small probability, and they then assert that therefore life by natural processes is impossible.

But the fact of the matter is, we do not know the processes by which life has come about in detail. To do the probabilistic calculations, we would have to know all the kinetic and mechanistic details by which the processes have come about, and, therefore, we would then be able to do the calculations. We are simply lacking the information to do the calculations now, so to present them on the basis of the random model is somewhat deceptive.

Speedwell said:

Laugh if you like, but the concept of randomness is important to engineers. It is the basis of many critical analytical techniques used in quality control and inferential statistics. There are manufacturing processes which are based on random variation and selection, and computers are designing electronic circuits in the same way. If you own a scientific calculator you will likely find a random number generator as one of its useful functions.

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Engineers understand that nothing is random.
Research will relate how random number generators
are faked. There are no random generators.

SkyWriting said:

Engineers understand that nothing is random.

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Speaking as an engineer, I will call you on that one. Many phenomena are unpredictable for all practical purposes.
But I suspect you are really making some other point, or trying to exploit the equivocation between the popular usage of "random" (without cause or purpose) and the scientific usage (unpredictable) for some rhetorical purpose.

several problems with abiogenesis:

1)first: as far as we know a minimal cell need about 150 genes for a minimal function (by experiment):

How Many Genes Can Make a Cell: The Minimal-Gene-Set Concept - Annual Reviews Collection - NCBI Bookshelf

so this fact alone can falsified any abiogenesis model.

2)as far as i aware there is no a single experiment that can produce all 4 nucleotides that need to produce RNA molecule.

3)even if we have RNA bases they need to produce a self replicaiting molecule. but as far as we know the simplest RNA replicase (that can bee sufficient enough for abiogenesis) is about 200 bp long ( called r 18). or a chance of about 4^200 to evolve only once. and we need more molecules to continue with the replication process.

4) we also need to evolve a minimal translation system.

Speedwell said:

Speaking as an engineer, I will call you on that one. Many phenomena are unpredictable for all practical purposes.

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So you will quote from your engineering sources then?

pitabread said:

Considering the sheer size and scope of the universe, it seems a lot less remarkable. In fact, if the universe was created solely for the existence of life on this one planet, it's really just a lot of wasted space.

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And only on a small portion of that planet. Anytime someone uses the "Earth is perfectly designed for humans, therefore God" argument, invite him to spend an hour or two under sea level or above the snowline without special equipment.

SkyWriting said:

So you will quote from your engineering sources then?

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Why? You are the one making the extraordinary claim.

For example, if I have a sample of a radioactive isotope, I can predict with reasonable accuracy how many of the atoms will decay in a given period of time, but not which ones. In that sense the decay is random.

You, on the other hand, deny the existence of this and all random behavior. Essentially you are claiming that which atom will decay next can be predicted--and that all engineers agree with you.

And if you doubt that this decay is generally regarded as random by scientists and engineers and want a source for it, I will be glad to provide one--but first I want to know what point you are trying to make with your bizarre claim.

pitabread said:

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You missed the point.

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Not the first time.

Maybe he should stop writing in the sky and start learning to write here on earth.

Saucy said:

Not when you have to figure the sheer probabilty of it all happened on its own.

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Before, or after the fact?

In a lab, it will always be an intelligently designed experiment.

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lol!
Ever heared about "controlled conditions"? It's only the "controlled" part that is designed.
Not the stuff that happens under those conditions.

You add the right chemicals and gasses, throw in some sand, spark it with lightning (or whatever the whole experiment is), knowing that it's possible some lipid bubbles and proteins will form.

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Right. Meaning that if such materials exist under such conditions outside of the lab - the same thing will happen.

Consider a freezer. The conditions IN the freezer are "controlled conditions". The freezer is "intelligently designed". Put water in it and it will turn into ice.

Meaning that if water exists under similar conditions outside of said freezer, it will also turn into ice - without any "intelligent intervention".

I give this simplistic example, because your "logic" smells like "freezers - therefor the north pole isn't natural".

I used to be a staunch atheist and heavily into evolution. That all changed after finding Christ and now none of what I believed before makes no sense to me.

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Perhaps you should talk to people like Ken Miller and Francis Collins: christians and well respected evolutionary biologists. I'm sure they could explain the sense to you (and immediatly also expose that you never really understood evolution, otherwise you'ld still comprehend it - no matter what you believe about the bible).

Starting from the Big Bang, the odds of singularity

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You don't know those odds.

, A medium sized star with the perfect size of earth

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Define "perfect" in this context.

, at the perfect distance from the sun

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Again, define "perfect" in this context...

The orbit of the earth around the sun isn't "perfect" by any means and the goldilock zone is millions of kilometers wide.

Also, we have investigated only a tiny speck of other stars and have already found DOZENS of rock planets orbitting in the goldilock zone. So it doesn't seem to be special in any way.

, perfect gravity, atmosphere, water, etc.

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Again, "perfect" in what sense?

Evolutionist Harold Morowitz estimated the probability for chance formation of even the simplest form of living organism at 1/10,340,000,000.

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1. Here's what the dude really had to say about the origins of life:

Morowitz's book Energy Flow in Biology laid out his central thesis that "the energy that flows through a system acts to organize that system,"[12] an insight later quoted on the inside front cover of The Last Whole Earth Catalog. He was a vigorous proponent of the view that life on earth emerged deterministically from the laws of chemistry and physics,[13] and so believed it highly probable that life exists widely in the universe.[5][14]

2. I can dissmiss that so-called probability at face value, for the simple reason that we don't even know what the "simplest life form" is. You can't calculate the probability of an unknown. Having said that, how life forms is currently unknown as well. So that's a double unknown, even.

So, the probability of forming a simple cell by chance processes is infinitely less likely than having a blind person select one specifically marked grain of sand out of an entire earth filled with sand.

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Let's assume this ridiculous probability is actually correct.
That means that out of 10 billion trials, it will happen once.

Our galaxy alone already houses a multitude of that number in stars (some 200 billion). Each has a potential of multiple planets. So, assuming an average of 3 planets per star, that's 600 billion planets in our milky way. There some 150 billion galaxies in the observable universe. That's trillions upon trillions upon trillions of planets.

Not to mention that just ONE planet, houses a potential of billions upon billions of "test tubes" where the chemistry might be able to produce life.

In conclusion, going by the number of 1 in 10 billion, I'ld say that life forming in this universe is not only probably, it is inevitable.

That's just life forming. Each individual step to get to that point is beyond mathematically probable on its own.

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You can repeat this till you are blue in the face. It won't make it true or demonstrable.
As I explained above: you simply lack the required information and data to be able to make such a calculation accuratly. In fact, you'ld first have to actually understand and know how life CAN form naturally, before you're actually able to calculate the probability of that happening.

When you add up each step that has to happen before it, and all that has happened until now with intelligent species like humans, where the human eye itself is too complex to have formed by chance, much less an entire bodily system and consciousness.

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The thing is that it didn't happen overnight. Evolution is gradual.
And because of the gradual nature thereof and the MANY parameters from the environment determining the selection pressures, it is completely non-sensical to try and calculate the probability of an evolutionary path spanning millions of years.

It makes no sense at all and whatever probability you come with, will be completely meaningless.

Saucy said:

I used to be a staunch atheist and heavily into evolution.

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Ah, the old, old story. And what was the evidence that convinced you that there is no god, and that evolution is true. How much research did you do? Did you read books about biology, or take university courses in biology or other sciences? What did you learn about how and when the Bible was written, and about the historical reliability of the Gospels?

Saucy said:

That all changed after finding Christ and now none of what I believed before makes no sense to me.

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Again, the old, old story. How did you find Christ? What was the evidence that convinced you that this discovery was real and that your previous interpretations of the Bible and the history of Christianity were false? Did you read books about theology, or take university courses in theology or philosophy? Most important, why did your 'finding Christ' make you reject the evidence for evolution? After all, there are many scientists who accept evolution and are still Christians; some of them even contribute to these forums.

Saucy said:

A medium sized star with the perfect size of earth, at the perfect distance from the sun, perfect gravity, atmosphere, water, etc.

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If you google 'How many stars are there in the universe?' you will find websites that give estimates of a trillion trillion stars (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). Since most of these stars probably have several planets, most of them with satellite systems, there are enough planets and satellites for a lot of them to have conditions suitable for life. Astronomers now think that even in our own solar system, the planet Mars and the satellites Europa, Enceladus and Titan, even though they are very different from the Earth, may have some form of primitive life.

PsychoSarah said:

There has been a lot of progress in the abiogenesis theory in recent years,

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Much ado about nothing.

Astrophile said:

Ah, the old, old story. And what was the evidence that convinced you that there is no god, and that evolution is true. How much research did you do? Did you read books about biology, or take university courses in biology or other sciences? What did you learn about how and when the Bible was written, and about the historical reliability of the Gospels?



Again, the old, old story. How did you find Christ? What was the evidence that convinced you that this discovery was real and that your previous interpretations of the Bible and the history of Christianity were false? Did you read books about theology, or take university courses in theology or philosophy? Most important, why did your 'finding Christ' make you reject the evidence for evolution? After all, there are many scientists who accept evolution and are still Christians; some of them even contribute to these forums.

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Are you discounting my story? Or are you really interested in hearing it? I'm not interested in wasting time sharing it if you plan on crapping on it or picking it apart to make me sound like I'm an idiot because I no longer accept evolution as fact. But if you are genuinely interested and want to have a good discussion, I don't mind sharing at all.