Kylie's Evidence Challenge

[expos4ever]

If all life is from prior life with no known exceptions...

I don't believe any expert in biology and other related disciplines would ever make such a claim.

.....then that would logically retrodict to a living first cause for all bio-life here as opposed to an exclusively nonliving.

No. While I am not a biologist, I will wager that almost all biologists would speculate that what we all call "life" - from the simplest amoeba to the complex human being - arose from basic atoms and molecules. People sometimes introduce an ill-defined concept - life - and then leverage the confusion that term invariably brings with it in order to cast doubt on a "natural" origin for things like both amoebas and human beings. The biologist will say there is no fundamental, irreducible thing called "life" - the term is used as a shorthand term to refer to complex structures that share common properties.

But there is no magic thing called "life" - a living amoeba is simply a complex arrangement of elementary building blocks. And if a plausible case can be made that through entirely natural processes such complex structures can come to exist, then the whole quest for a "living first cause" becomes irrelevant.

I believe that the experts do not yet have a model for how the first entities we call "living" came to be. But that is certainly not argument that there is no such model, waiting to be discovered.

 

[dmmesdale]

I don't believe any expert in biology and other related disciplines would ever make such a claim.

It does not matter what they say. If they are into science then what matters is what they can show with evidence.

No. While I am not a biologist, I will wager that almost all biologists would speculate that what we all call "life" - from the simplest amoeba to the complex human being - arose from basic atoms and molecules.

Speculation is not science. They are into voodoo and not science. Who cares what they speculate. Its not like they can go to court and speculate absent evidence.

People sometimes introduce an ill-defined concept - life - and then leverage the confusion that term invariably brings with it in order to cast doubt on a "natural" origin for things like both amoebas and human beings. The biologist will say there is no fundamental, irreducible thing called "life" - the term is used as a shorthand term to refer to complex structures that share common properties.

Simplest is bacteria.

But there is no magic thing called "life" - a living amoeba is simply a complex arrangement of elementary building blocks. And if a plausible case can be made that through entirely natural processes such complex structures can come to exist, then the whole quest for a "living first cause" becomes irrelevant.

Yeah that is what you call blind faith or wishful thinking, not science.

I believe that the experts do not yet have a model for how the first entities we call "living" came to be. But that is certainly not argument that there is no such model, waiting to be discovered.

They are barking up the wrong tree and it has been 150 years and counting. They have to follow the evidence, not retrofit it into their imaginary story.

 

[expos4ever]

Speculation is not science. They are into voodoo and not science. Who cares what they speculate. Its not like they can go to court and speculate absent evidence.

You appear to be evading. This is not difficult. You appear to be arguing that the scientists are in the difficult position of having to posit a "living first cause" for all life that has developed subsequently.

But the scientists are not in this position at all - there is absolutely no necessity for a "living" first cause. Simple life forms are complex structures composed of simpler "non-living" parts. This is not really up for debate I suggest: no reasonable person would deny that a human being is ultimately composed of things like hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc., all assembled together in a specific pattern.

Are oxygen molecules alive? Of course not! Yet, it is clear that living beings like human being are made up non-living parts! Granted, the arrangements are incredibly complex.

But the relevant point is that it is exceedingly reasonable to assume that life can indeed arise from "non-life". Granted, this puzzle has not been solved yet - the experts have yet to map out the path from non-life to life. But that is a far cry from denying that such a path does not exist.