Challenge To Evolution

[Phred]

I don't see why it is unfair. Evolution supposes that life can originate from amino acids.

No.. it doesn't. Evolution tells us how life can become as diverse as we see it is. It says NOTHING about how life originates. That's a theory called abiogenesis.

Now, since abiogenesis theorizes that life can begin from amino acids that means you need conditions on a planet that can sustain the replication of amino acids. Since we can't discover if a planet has these conditions your "challenge" is unfair.

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[MrGoodBytes]

I don't see why it is unfair. Evolution supposes that life can originate from amino acids.

Yes, abiogenesis theory does suppose that. However, while we are pretty sure that this, given the right circumstances, would occur on other planets too, we do not have sufficiently advanced technology to detect it.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

Okay, but if abiogenisis true, then we should be able to find life on other planets in the future, right?

Hopefully yes but to really study it we need it to be within our solar system. If it exists on a planet outside our solar system its very very unlikely we'll get to study it and we'll only know about it by looking for indicators in the planets atmosphere we'll see with spectroscopy.

 

[Dr.GH]

Well, I look forward to the research. But so far, with all our science and technology, we have not been able to find one shred of life on other planets and celestial bodies. I'm sorry to sound redundant, but my feeling is that some are uncomfortable with that fact.

This is not true. We have found molecules that we know are essential for life, and associated with life from other star systems.

This does not equal "we found life." We will not know until we, or our robots, actually go to these systems to check.

PS: Our technology for this work, and the amount of resources made available for it are trivial compared the the billions wasted on "starwars" programs.

 

[Dr.GH]

Does it not bother any of you that there is not the tiniest shred of life on other planets and celestial bodies let alone an entire planet absolutely teeming with life?

Just how would you propose determining if there is life on other planets? What signal would you look for? How would you detect that signal? How will you pay to do the necessary work?

Until you answer thise questions, I refuse to bother with this thread anymore.

 

[OdwinOddball]

Ok, lets break this down for him a bit. Obviously he is not well studied in the sciences so make no assumptions on what he knows.

First up, some basics. There are 3 groups of theories that compete against the "Creationism" ideaology.Origin of the Universe, Origin of life, and origin of species.

Origin of the Universe is currently best explained with the Big Bang theories, and its various sub theories.

Origin of life(which is what you are talking about) is a very very young science, and has no formal theory. In general though, the current scienctific ideas for the origins of life are called Abiogenesis. This is the various hypothesis and ideas that state that life(as we know life, other forms are not ruled out yet) is comprised of DNA, which forms from more basic amino acids. These amino acids can be produced given the right mixture of elements, and provide a soemthing tstarst the reaction. The current thinking is that this was lightening discharges in the early atmosphere of the earth.

THen you have Origin of the Species, which is currently the Theory of Evolution.

None of the three theory groups rely on each other. They work independantly. The ToE assumes life and the universe already exist, and takes over the story from there. Abiogenesis assumes that the universe exists, and explains it from there.

 

[OdwinOddball]

Now, as to you original question, frankly, as others have stated, this is a very poor argument.

We are currently just begining to fully explore the planets of our own solar system. We know the most about Mars, atm, and it still remains quite possible that Mars once supported life. It is even possible that Mars still supports life. But untill we comb ever square inch of the surface we cannto say it is devoid of life.

Consider this. 50 years ago, it was assumed that no life could exist in the highly acidic super heated water found near under water volcanoes. Now we know that to be false.

Every day we uncover new specieies of life on this planet that have never been observed my man, many of which exist in conditions that are lethal to most other life forms.

There are roughly 100 BILLION stars in our galaxy alone. And there are roughly 100 BILLION galaxies in the universe.

Thats 100 billion times 100 billion
or roughly
[SIZE=-1]10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
stars in our universe.

Each star is home to a possible solar system.

We have explored only 1 solar system, and we havent even come close to finishing that one.

So, making a statement such as th OP, in light of this, is as you can see, a bit naive.

We know evolution is in action here on Earth. We can observe the remains of our ancestoirs, we cna trace back our history to the earliest life, and we can observe evolution in action today in labs research across the world.


[/SIZE]

 

[Pesto]

Okay, but if abiogenisis true, then we should be able to find life on other planets in the future, right?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: If abiogenisis is true, we should find life on other planets that exhibit similar characteristics to Earth (similar temperatures, similar atmosphere, presence of liquid water, etc.) and we will only be able to gather this evidence once we are capable of finding and exploring these planets. So far, the furthest humans have gone is to the moon, and the furthest our probes have gone is to the edge of our own solar system. Getting probes, let alone actual people, to extrasolar planets will not happen for a very long time. Like you said, all this will happen "in the future".

 

[Loudmouth]

Okay, but if abiogenisis true, then we should be able to find life on other planets in the future, right?

Don't know. Life could be so rare that it only occurs on one planet in every 1 million galaxies. Given that there are about 10 billion galaxies, this would add up to 10,000 planets in the universe with life. We simply don't know enough about the population of planets in other solar systems, much less other galaxies. It's a bit like calculating the odds of a lottery without knowing how many balls are in the hopper.

 

[Morcova]

Does it not bother any of you that there is not the tiniest shred of life on other planets and celestial bodies let alone an entire planet absolutely teeming with life?

Interesting, so you've done what NASA has yet to and personally visited every celestial body in the galaxy and checked for life.

Please share with us how you managed to accomplish this, I'm sure it'll help us save billions on our space programs.

 

[Morcova]

Aren't you reaching? "Look the most promising to support some form of life." ????

What does that mean?

That's certainly not proof.

That would be why he said "most promising" and not "definitive proof".

 

[Morcova]

We don't have to actually set foot on a planet to know if there is life or not.

We know what the basic ingredients are that support life, and we can observe if they exist on a planet.

Er... have you actually ever taken a science course?

 

[Morcova]

If Dawiyd's earlier post about amino acids seems to suggest that it's easy for them to form, why isn't there any life on the moon?

An atmosphere helps.

 

[Morcova]

I don't see why it is unfair. Evolution supposes that life can originate from amino acids.

No, ABIOGENISIS says that.

Please before you start asking questions get your theories straight.

 

[Kahalachan]

This is a challenge for SETI or astronomy. Not really an evolution challenge.

Evolution has met its challenge already and stood strong.

 

[BVZ]

Until scientists find even one shred of life on other celestial bodies, I will not even consider evolution.

So according to this statement, evidence on life on other planets will make you consider evolution?

Consider the following points:

1) Will evidence of life from another planet differ from evidence of life on Earth?
2) If you think they will differ, how will they differ?
3) If you agree that evidence of life on Earth will be identical to evidence of life on another planet, it seems only logical that evidence of life on Earth should already have made you 'consider' evolution.

Basically, there are two options.

1) You agree that evidence for life on another planet will be identical to evidence for life on Earth.
2) You think that levidence for life on another planet will be different that evidence for life on Earth.

If you choose 1, you should already be considering evolution according to your OP.

If you choose 2, you have to demonstrate the differences between the two sets of evidence.

<Edited for spelling>

 

[BVZ]

Hello?