evolution question

[Loudmouth]

no, science has been unable to demonstrate life from nonlife.

400 years ago, science wasn't able to demonstrate lightning from clouds.

some will object on the grounds that the initial conditions were unknown but yet hail miller-urey as a triumph.

That isn't the objection. The objection is that we don't know what the first replicators were made of. We don't know if they were predominately RNA, protein, PNA, or a combination of all three.

a series of exceedingly unlikely step are required for the first life.

It is exceedingly unlikely that someone will win the lottery, yet people win all of the time.

Exceedingly unlikely is made exceedingly likely by the size the universe, the time involved, and the number of planets where these reactions were taking place.

 

[ecco]

ecco said: ↑
Make a statement, in your own words, stating your position. Then, if you want, post one link supporting your position and quote from that link.

Too often people just post links and then later say "YOU DIDN'T READ THE ARTICLE".

I sourced all three before posting the links. You must be talking about the middle one which relates to abiogeneses rather than discusses its origins. I included it to provide a broad perspective. Perhaps someone more qualified than me will post some additional links for you; I am not a biologist, rather a chemist.

It had nothing to do with you sourcing and it nothing to do with the middle or any other link. Don't take it personally, but a lot of people in this forum post a bunch of links that they may or may not have read. As I said, make your case in your own words. Then, if you want, post one link supporting your position and quote from that link.

 

[In situ]

ecco: No one has been able to draw firm, consistent line between "life" and "non-life".

Most people will be able to tell the difference between living and dead things.

I was talking about life, not evolution.

Do you also consider atoms and molecules to be different things?

 

[In situ]

Does anyone know, according to scientists, if life still forms today out of non-living material?

It is as likely for abiogenesis to be repeated today as a chunk of meat will stay untouched in a small swimming pool with 1000 starving piranhas.

Based on this article I calculated the weight of all the carbon atoms in bacterium to about 2.5 billions blue whales (weighting in at 150 ton each). The actual mass of all bacterium is far bigger than this. All this carbon has a turn over time of about 2 weeks. In numbers that is some 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 (10^30) hungry bacterium to feed every day. Compare this to the Earth surface area which is about 510 000 000 000 000 m^2.

Everything that looks even remote like food (like new life trying to form) to these 10^30 hungry bacterium will be consumed in a jiffy. Now compare that to 4 billion years back in time when there was exactly 0 bacterium around.

However, your question could also be taken in another sense by asking where does present life come from? The answer to that is from non-living materials a.k.a nutrients. So in that sense, yes life is formed frpm non-living materials even as we speak.

 

[2consider]

I saw on Yahoo today that scientists discovered that life may have began 4.1 billion years ago as opposed to 3.8 billion which they previously thought. One scientist said that under the right conditions life forms very easily.

It just got me wondering if it is still occurring today.

Perhaps a better question is, did it ever happen.

 

[Armoured]

Does anyone know, according to scientists, if life still forms today out of non-living material?

Short answer; probably not.the conditions are different, and the required chemicals are being used by extant life already.

 

[Armoured]

Perhaps a better question is, did it ever happen.

Well, given that life exists, yeah, probably.

 

[ecco]

ecco:↑ No one has been able to draw firm, consistent line between "life" and "non-life".​

Most people will be able to tell the difference between living and dead things.

Sure. But, no one has been able to draw firm, consistent line between "life" and "non-life".

ecco:↑

I was talking about life, not evolution.​

Do you also consider atoms and molecules to be different things?

Yes. I also believe that electrons and quarks are different things. What's your point?

 

[Dr GS Hurd]

It should be easy, because in laboratory, it is easy to set environment to be suitable for life to born, if it is truly possible that lifeless material could turn into life spontaneously.

I didn't even read the rest of your comment. I might later. But your gross error was too much to pass by without correcting it.

Origin of life research has two main parts, the geochemical study of what early earth conditions were like, and the organic chemical study of how primitive life could have emerged under the constraints of the geochemical studies.

Making a new sort of life using chemicals not found on Earth today has been done. Using chemicals not found on earth today prevents the new life-form from escaping the laboratory- it would die. Some of the best work is reported by;


Ekland, EH, JW Szostak, and DP Bartel
1995 "Structurally complex and highly active RNA ligases derived from random RNA sequences" Science 21 July 1995: Vol. 269. no. 5222, pp. 364 - 370

Jack W. Szostak, David P. Bartel, P. Luigi Luisi
2001 "Synthesizing life" Nature 409, 387 - 390

Anthony D. Keefe, Jack W. Szostak
2001 “Functional proteins from a random-sequence library” Nature 410, 715-718

Martin M. Hanczyc, Shelly M. Fujikawa, and Jack W. Szostak
2003 "Experimental Models of Primitive Cellular Compartments: Encapsulation, Growth, and Division" Science October 24; 302: 618-622.


Hazen RM, Griffin PL, Carothers JM, Szostak JW
2007 "Functional information and the emergence of biocomplexity" Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104 Suppl 1:8574-81.

 

[Armoured]

I didn't even read the rest of your comment. I might later. But your gross error was too much to pass by without correcting it.

Origin of life research has two main parts, the geochemical study of what early earth conditions were like, and the organic chemical study of how primitive life could have emerged under the constraints of the geochemical studies.

Making a new sort of life using chemicals not found on Earth today has been done. Using chemicals not found on earth today prevents the new life-form from escaping the laboratory- it would die. Some of the best work is reported by;


Ekland, EH, JW Szostak, and DP Bartel
1995 "Structurally complex and highly active RNA ligases derived from random RNA sequences" Science 21 July 1995: Vol. 269. no. 5222, pp. 364 - 370

Jack W. Szostak, David P. Bartel, P. Luigi Luisi
2001 "Synthesizing life" Nature 409, 387 - 390

Anthony D. Keefe, Jack W. Szostak
2001 “Functional proteins from a random-sequence library” Nature 410, 715-718

Martin M. Hanczyc, Shelly M. Fujikawa, and Jack W. Szostak
2003 "Experimental Models of Primitive Cellular Compartments: Encapsulation, Growth, and Division" Science October 24; 302: 618-622.


Hazen RM, Griffin PL, Carothers JM, Szostak JW
2007 "Functional information and the emergence of biocomplexity" Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104 Suppl 1:8574-81.

How fascinating!

 

[Dr GS Hurd]

How fascinating!

There are some very serious ethical questions about creating artificial, or "synthetic" life.

 

[Armoured]

There are some very serious ethical questions about creating artificial, or "synthetic" life.

Of course. But it's still fascinating. Last I heard about was "Spiegelman's monster".

 

[TLK Valentine]

I saw on Yahoo today that scientists discovered that life may have began 4.1 billion years ago as opposed to 3.8 billion which they previously thought. One scientist said that under the right conditions life forms very easily.

It just got me wondering if it is still occurring today.

It almost certainly does -- but our planet is already teeming with life. Whatever did form would get eaten by some microbe long before we ever noticed it.

 

[freezerman2000]

Personally, I think it be nice to keep the creation vs. evolution out of this section. There's more than enough places on this site to have that debate. And the way one man understands the Bible isn't the way another man understands the Bible, so what you think is truth may in fact not be.

And that is the reason why Apologetics is frowned upon in this type of forum,to keep them from having a massive derailment.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Does anyone know, according to scientists, if life still forms today out of non-living material?

Don't let them fool you into believing it's not a evolution problem. Science declares every effect must have a prior cause. Then don't let them fool you into thinking abiogenesis is relevant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

"Belief in spontaneous generation of certain forms of life from non-living matter goes back to Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophy and continued to have support in Western scholarship until the 19th century.[50] This belief was paired with a belief in heterogenesis, i.e., that one form of life derived from a different form (e.g., bees from flowers)...


"...And thus the hypothesis that living matter always arises by the agency of pre-existing living matter, took definite shape; and had, henceforward, a right to be considered and a claim to be refuted, in each particular case, before the production of living matter in any other way could be admitted by careful reasoners. It will be necessary for me to refer to this hypothesis so frequently, that, to save circumlocution, I shall call it the hypothesis of Biogenesis; and I shall term the contrary doctrine–that living matter may be produced by not living matter–the hypothesis of Abiogenesis."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation

"Spontaneous generation or anomalous generation is an obsolete body of thought on the ordinary formation of living organisms without descent from similar organisms."

Exactly what they propose - descent of living organisms without descent from similar organisms.

Don't let them fool you with the double-talk when the science disproves everything they say.

 

[ecco]

Science declares every effect must have a prior cause.

Except, of course, your god, which you claim has no "prior cause".

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Don't let them fool you into believing it's not a evolution problem. Science declares every effect must have a prior cause. Then don't let them fool you into thinking abiogenesis is relevant.
...
Exactly what they propose - descent of living organisms without descent from similar organisms.

Don't let them fool you with the double-talk when the science disproves everything they say.

I can't imagine that you'd deliberately misrepresent the situation, so I must assume you just haven't grasped the difference between spontaneous generation and abiogenesis; it's a bit like the difference between Lamarkism and epigenetics - two superficially similar concepts that have important differences.

Spontaneous generation was the idea that the organisms seen associated with decomposing matter, e.g. beetles, flies, maggots, worms, etc., were spontaneously generated by the rotting material. Abiogenesis is the idea that simple self-replicating molecules can spontaneously assemble under suitable environmental conditions, providing the basis from which complex life can evolve.

 

[Black Dog]

Why should it be easy? We are talking about a series of chemical reactions that required a vessel the size of Earth and millions of years to occur. One flask in a lab that sits for a couple of weeks isn't even close.

Sure, that's one explanation, but how about in a jar of peanut butter?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

I can't imagine that you'd deliberately misrepresent the situation, so I must assume you just haven't grasped the difference between spontaneous generation and abiogenesis; it's a bit like the difference between Lamarkism and epigenetics - two superficially similar concepts that have important differences.

Spontaneous generation was the idea that the organisms seen associated with decomposing matter, e.g. beetles, flies, maggots, worms, etc., were spontaneously generated by the rotting material. Abiogenesis is the idea that simple self-replicating molecules can spontaneously assemble under suitable environmental conditions, providing the basis from which complex life can evolve.

Sounds like double-talk to me.

So did or did not life come from similar organisms or not??? I know you don't want to believe your theory is an outdated theory proven false long ago, but hey - just accept the truth.

""Spontaneous generation or anomalous generation is an obsolete body of thought on the ordinary formation of living organisms without descent from similar organisms."

So as soon as you can logically explain how life from non-life is not decent from dis-similar organisms...... Otherwise it's all just double-talk to avoid the truth.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

So did or did not life come from similar organisms or not???

Originally? No.

I know you don't want to believe your theory is an outdated theory proven false long ago, but hey - just accept the truth.

None of them are my theories - and there are many abiogenesis theories - and no-one knows what really happened.

""Spontaneous generation or anomalous generation is an obsolete body of thought on the ordinary formation of living organisms without descent from similar organisms."

So as soon as you can logically explain how life from non-life is not decent from dis-similar organisms...... Otherwise it's all just double-talk to avoid the truth.

Well, I tried to explain the distinction between the two concepts, one obsolete and one under active development; unfortunately I can't help you grasp it - though I suspect you grasp it well enough.