My Abiogenesis Challenge

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LoricaLady

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Speedwell This will be my last response to you and I will read no more of your posts lest I be tempted to respond and, I believe, waste both our times. You are free to speculate about what you think I think about what the Father could or could not do, and what you think he could or could not do, and use all sorts of word play. I don't have time for any of that. I find it of zero value. Again, if you don't see what I already had to say earlier, nothing else I have to say will mean anything. Speculate away about this and that. Whatever.
 
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Speedwell

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Speedwell This will be my last response to you and I will read no more of your posts lest I be tempted to respond and, I believe, waste both our times. You are free to speculate about what you think I think about what the Father could or could not do, and what you think he could or could not do, and use all sorts of word play. I don't have time for any of that. I find it of zero value. Again, if you don't see what I already had to say earlier, nothing else I have to say will mean anything. Speculate away about this and that. Whatever.
I'm just trying to find out what your point is. You seem to be going on as if you believed that a naturalistic abiogenesis somehow ruled out God's creation of life, but you appear to be smarter than that, so I must have missed or misunderstood something you said.
 
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bhsmte

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I'm just trying to find out what your point is. You seem to be going on as if you believed that a naturalistic abiogenesis somehow ruled out God's creation of life, but you appear to be smarter than that, so I must have missed or misunderstood something you said.

Here is the deal. Evolution and the evidence that supports it, is scary enough for some theists. Add in abiogensis and the potential for new evidence to come out and that scares them even further.
 
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Bugeyedcreepy

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Bugeyed Creepy You use Miller and Urey as your defense of abiogenesis - and then you ask me to cite my sources on them? Do your own homework, friend. The data is there for anyone who wants to look for it. One thing you have not done, just as I predicted, is to show me how M & U, or anyone else, has ever seen life arise from inorganic matter. I would say I'm still waiting for that, but I'm not waiting because I know it will never happen. You see, I did my research.

"Unsubstantiated claims"? YOU are the one making unsubstantiated claims since you claim there is some evidence life comes from inorganic matter and there is zero of that. I claimed, based on observable, testable and repeatable data, that life comes from life, that Miller and Urey never got life from inorganic matter, and so on. You did nothing to present data to refute the SUBSTANTIATED claims I gave.

Now, I would not even respond to you anymore, however, in your last post it seems to me - right or wrong - that maybe you really have a heart to know what is true, even if it is outside your box. First, you are using the Appeal To Authority Logical Fallacy. That is, instead of trading data for data you show...faith...in what mainstream, orthodox, politically correct, viciously self protective Neo Darwinian academia and mainstream media are teaching about the fake news of the science world, evolutionism.

You just assume that all scientists believe in evolution. I bet you would say, as I would have said in the past, "Well! If evolution is not true, prove it and get a Nobel Prize!" Right?

Let's look at what some secular scientists have had to say that disagrees with evolutionism.
We are told that beneficial mutations are an essential mechanism for evolution to occur, but H. J. Mueller, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on mutations, said....
"It is entirely in line with the accidental nature of mutations that extensive tests have agreed in showing the vast majority of them detrimental to the organism in its job of surviving and reproducing -- good ones are so rare we can consider them all bad." H.J. Mueller, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 11:331.
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Anyway, mutations are isolated, random, events that do not build on one another like Legos, and certainly have no ability to create totally new DNA as, for ex., would be needed to turn a leg into a wing.
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As for natural selection, it does not lead to evolution, either. What does NS select from? What is already in the genome. Further, it causes a loss of information, not the new info you would need to turn a fin into, say, a foot. That is why no matter what it selects from in a fish or bird or lizard or bacteria or monkey or tree or flower you will still have a fish, bird, lizard, bacteria, etc. But if you can give data - not just theories presented as facts in the conveniently invisible past - that a Life Form A turned into Life Form B as the result of NS, do present that. Name the life forms and the evidence you have to show NS caused the transition from one type to another type.
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Let's see what some other secular scientists have to say about evolution.
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Bowler, Peter J., Review of In Search of Deep Time by Henry Gee (Free Press, 1999), American Scientist (vol. 88, March/April 2000), p. 169.
"We cannot identify ancestors or 'missing links,' and we cannot devise testable theories to explain how particular episodes of evolution came about. Gee is adamant that all the popular stories about how the first amphibians conquered the dry land, how the birds developed wings and feathers for flying, how the dinosaurs went extinct, and how humans evolved from apes are just products of our imagination, driven by prejudices and preconceptions."
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"There are only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation, that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others. That leaves us with the only possible conclusion that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God. I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible; spontaneous generation arising to evolution." (Nobel Prize winner Wald, George, "Innovation and Biology," Scientific American, Vol. 199, Sept. 1958, p. 100)
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"The pathetic thing about it is that many scientists are trying to prove the doctrine of evolution, which no science can do." (Dr. Robert A. Milikan, physicist and Nobel Prize winner, speech before the American Chemical Society.)
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"Hypothesis [evolution] based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts....These classical evolutionary theories are a gross over-simplification of an immensely complex and intricate mass of facts, and it amazes me that they are swallowed so uncritically and readily, and for such a long time, by so many scientists without a murmur of protest."
(Sir Ernst Chan, Nobel Prize winner for developing penicillin)
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On this webpage you can see Nobel Prize winning scientists, other secular scientists - including some world famous evolutionists - admitting there is no evidence for evolution. You can see them calling evolution a kind of religion, something that leads to "anti knowledge", etc. Notice how many of these secular scientists acknowledge evidence for a Creator.
These Quotes Reveal The Credulity Of Evolutionists
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Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed shows the politics of Neo Darwinism which harasses and expels those in academia and the media who even hint that there MIGHT be evidence for a Creator.
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Now, dear, I have given you a lot of references. They are the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is out there. They can help you learn to think for yourself, to do critical thinking, to rise above faith based theories to examining real data. You can look or not. You can see or not.
It's up to you.
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Again, my time is limited. Again, it's between you and the Father. However, I do suggest that you pray to Him to know the truth, whatever it is. Often, without the Holy Spirit, we cannot see even the obvious. That has been true for me and many, so often.
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You probably no way believe we have an enemy called "the father of lies" and that he is "the prince" not King of kings "of this world." But we do. And he is real good at his job since the Fall.
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Anyone reading this: You are not an ape update. You were created in the very image and likeness of the Creator. He is your Father and loves you and wants you to know Him, and love Him too. Why trade in that fantastic truth for a bunch of mumbo jumbo pseudo science that even secular scientists can't get consensus on? Rhetorical Q.
....Crikey! You can Write!

I don't use Miller & Urey to back me up at all - I say that I simply don't know how life came about. One thing can be guaranteed though, Life came about! This one point of Data is enough to get us looking into how it might've happened. That's all the evidence needed.

So, as for the rest of it, Great to see you can cherry pick anecdotal stories and quote-mines from the deep recesses of the internet, but where's the science backing you up? Science is done in the lab, and field, it isn't played out in popular culture via sound bites... Anyhoo, discussion on the 'E' word is not appropriate here, as per OP.

My Dad and I are fine btw, as is my Mum. I'll be seeing them next week!

Also, what difference is there between what you determine is an Ape, and Us? Where does Australopithecus (the fossils that include 'Lucy') fit into your view of what an Ape and Human is? How about Homo Habilis? Homo Erectus? Neanderthal? - Ape - Wikipedia
 
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bhsmte

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"Let those see who have eyes to see." I can't give anyone those eyes. But...they can't change the truth either. I stand with the Savior and The Word. You get to do, for now, whatever you wish. Byeeee!

What truth? Truth, can be demonstrated.
 
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Sine Nomine

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"Some evidence to support"... Please see my first post talking about the theoretical being valued over actual evidence. "Replication"? If you replicate inorganic matter you get more inorganic matter. Even with life what is replicated creates nothing new. When you replicate a sonnet on your printer do you get a math formula or even a new verse?

"Basic building blocks required for life..." yet somehow they don't create any life. Ever. "Under appropriate conditions." Really? What exactly are those "appropriate conditions". Give you data. Give you data to show how you know they are "appropriate." if they are "appropriate" and could lead to life, how come no one in any high tech lab with intelligent design has made life with those "appropriate conditions?" I mean if intelligent design and high tech manipulation can't make life, how is random chance going to do it? Explain that for me, please. Again, with data, please. Facts. What real science uses.

Do you understand that science requires actual observable, repeatable and testable data and that just claiming "appropriate conditions" doesn't demonstrate "appropriate conditions"? Do you understand the difference between faith and facts, friend?

You talk about the "primeval conditions" of earth. What actual data - not theories presented as gawd's truth facts with no data whatsoever to back them up - show you know what the so called "primeval conditions" of earth were? Present your data.

Now Miller and Urey, referenced above, thought they knew about the conditions of the early earth and then real science showed they were flat wrong about oxygen on the planet in the past, for ex. But, hey, again give me your data showing you know all about the early conditions of life in your presumed to be billions of years ago scenario. Data, now, not theories and conjectures presented as facts.

I made no claims about randomness. Are you familiar with Chaos or Complexity Theory? Both find order inherent in seemingly "random" events--I tend to disbelieve in randomness from the perspectives of science and faith.

I understand very well what science is and how it works. Science pays my bills.
I also don't claim to be an expert in the field of abiogenesis.

Here are some publications with links to plenty of data that you can peruse.

The origin of life: what we know, what we can know and what we will never know | Open Biology

PNAS | Mobile

You are correct that M&U didn't have it all right, but first experiments rarely do--which you should also know. There's a lot of work that's been done since then....

You should also know that science doesn't start with "all the facts" and then produce knowledge. It starts with observation and uses experimentation to address hypotheses that when validated lead to Theory. If it can be described mathematically and applies in every instance, then it can be called a Law--as in the Law of Gravitation. That life begets life doesn't really fit that definition.
 
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LoricaLady

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I am exiting from this string. I presented facts. As is usual with evolution defense, however, they were dismissed and the theoretical and hypothetical reigned supreme. Again, I can't help people to see the truth. Someone said that if you tell a lie often enough people will start to believe it. It seems to me that some people feel that if they say something is the truth enough, even though the data says the opposite, well, then it will finally become truth! Only prayer and the Holy Spirit can get through to such people. I have prayed, I have shared facts, not theories, and that is the best I can do.
 
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Sine Nomine

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"We just don't know how." There ya go. But you still have...faith... that it happened. Somehow. Some way. Leaving no evidence whatsoever.

Before tossing terms around, friend, please research what they mean. The word "abiogenesis" refers to life coming from inorganic matter. No, when Christians say the Almighty created life they are NOT referring to Someone who is inorganic matter. He IS life.

I've got the data. Life comes from life and life of the same kind every time. I've even got the LAW of biogenesis that states that. You've got faith... belief...that life came from inorganic matter. There is no ev-i-dence for that. Until you can show me life coming about through inorgnic matter - and you never will because it never has happened and never will happen - sorry, but I have nothing more to say to you. Until you understand that belief in the unobservable, untestable and unrepeatable can never replace actual data that IS observable, repeatable and testable, really nothing else I have to say to you will compute with you.


Inorganic matter (sodium, chloride, lithium, beryllium e.g.) cannot ever be living.

Life is built from organic matter (C, H, O, N, S, P with molecules composed primarily of C, H, and O).

Abiogenesis is life from non-living matter OR spontaneous generation
Definition of ABIOGENESIS

Science rejected spontaneous generation long ago. God is not living matter, that would be Animism--

Matter did not exist at time 0, carbon did not exist for some time, Life did not exist, it does now. Thus, abiogenesis happened. How it happened is a matter of scientific inquiry. Whether there is a spiritual being that created matter from nothing and life from organic matter ("dirt" or "earth" in Genesis) is a matter of Faith.

You say "belief in the unobservable, untestable and unrepeatable can never replace actual data that IS observable, repeatable and testable". I'm not sure why you believe that I think otherwise?

We can know that something happened without having mechanistic knowledge about it. We can also know that something happened without repeating an experiment. People exist, therefore they came from somewhere. Perfectly good science. Where they came from, how they came to be, etc are all good questions.
 
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Bugeyedcreepy

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I am exiting from this string. I presented facts. As is usual with evolution defense, however, they were dismissed and the theoretical and hypothetical reigned supreme. Again, I can't help people to see the truth. Someone said that if you tell a lie often enough people will start to believe it. It seems to me that some people feel that if they say something is the truth enough, even though the data says the opposite, well, then it will finally become truth! Only prayer and the Holy Spirit can get through to such people. I have prayed, I have shared facts, not theories, and that is the best I can do.
You didn't present facts, you presented anecdotal stories. Have you heard the anecdotal stories about other Gods of other Religions? Do you accept them as Facts too?
 
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xianghua

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There are a variety of experiments that demonstrate the production of basic building blocks required for life (amino acids, nucleic acids e.g) from conditions that simulate the primeval conditions on Earth.

are you familiar with an experiment that can produce all 4 RNA bases?


There is also some evidence to support RNA-based "life" (self-replication being the chief requirement) as a precursor to life as we understand it.

the shortest rna replicase that may even start any kind of abiogenesis called r18 and can replicate about 14 bases. its about 200 bp long so the chance to evolve such a molecule is about one in 4^200 molecules. and this is only for one generation. and this is only if we have a huge amount of rna bases (something that we never found on earth).
 
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Sine Nomine

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are you familiar with an experiment that can produce all 4 RNA bases?




the shortest rna replicase that may even start any kind of abiogenesis called r18 and can replicate about 14 bases. its about 200 bp long so the chance to evolve such a molecule is about one in 4^200 molecules. and this is only for one generation. and this is only if we have a huge amount of rna bases (something that we never found on earth).

All 4 bases are now used, they may not have all been required in earlier steps.

See Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions : Abstract : Nature

In terms of self-replicating systems see
http://m.pnas.org/content/113/35/9786.full

I also gather that you're asking how initial essential functions might have first emerged. The review I linked to earlier might be helpful.

The origin of life: what we know, what we can know and what we will never know | Open Biology
 
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xianghua

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All 4 bases are now used, they may not have all been required in earlier steps.

so its just a belief then. a belief without any scientific evidence.

thanks for the links. the first one talking about nucleotied without a ribose. unlike a true nucleotide. the second paper is also interesting. english isnt my native (and the paper is very technical)so i need to ask you:

1)what is the replicase lengh?
2)how many bases it can replicate? (i can see that according to the paper about 24 bases)
3)does it replicate any sequence or just its own one?
 
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Sine Nomine

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so its just a belief then. a belief without any scientific evidence.

thanks for the links. the first one talking about nucleotied without a ribose. unlike a true nucleotide. the second paper is also interesting. english isnt my native (and the paper is very technical)so i need to ask you:

1)what is the replicase lengh?
2)how many bases it can replicate? (i can see that according to the paper about 24 bases)
3)does it replicate any sequence or just its own one?


Let me start with your first statement, I'll come back to your specific questions later.

In response to my saying it was possible that all 4 bases may not have been required in earlier steps, you replied

"so its just a belief then. a belief without any scientific evidence."

Im not sure what you mean be "its"--abiogenesis? Or the idea that less than 3 bases could be used? But, your use of the word 'belief' is where I'm perplexed.

If by "belief" you mean acceptance of something without evidence then my answer is "no". I've already pointed out that abiogenesis has happened. There was no life and then there was. Non-living matter became living matter. Science and Religion don't disagree on this point. The question then becomes how did this happen. Scientist are working to learn how this could happen. The first paper shows that contrary to the assumption that the 4 RNA bases used today, a simpler ribose, can work. This is scientific evidence that says some of our assumptions about what is required for RNA to function are incorrect and that a simpler system--closer to the forms of matter that we call non-living--can work. This is not proof of how abiogenesis occurred, it is simply a piece of evidence. Scientists cannot tell you how it happened yet, we don't have enough evidence. But, we do have substantial quantities of evidence, so it's not a belief without scientific evidence.

If by 'belief' you mean that scientists have evaluated the available evidence and have thoughts and ideas that fit logically into a framework supported by that evidence, then my answer is 'yes'. Scientists have hypotheses all the time, these are beliefs that may be right or may be wrong. Experimentation and observation are the tools used to determine whether a belief about physical reality is correct or not.

This belief in a hypothesis is different from 'faith'. Faith is commonly viewed as trusting that something is true without evidence. Scientists don't trust hypotheses that lack evidence, this lack of trust is called skepticism or criticism and is essential to stay on track to identify the correct hypothesis and get to new knowledge.

However, Faith in the Biblical sense has the connotation of trust or confidence as well, as in when a promise is made you can either trust that the person will keep their promise or not. Jesus had no problem with Thomas being skeptical about Jesus having been dead and now alive, his being physically present and not a ghost--'here Thomas, put your hands in my wounds--see for yourself'. Thomas knew then based on first-hand evidence and could no longer disbelieve. This tells us that God thinks evidence is good and appropriate and that skepticism and experiment are acceptable paths to knowledge.
 
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Sine Nomine

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so its just a belief then. a belief without any scientific evidence.

thanks for the links. the first one talking about nucleotied without a ribose. unlike a true nucleotide. the second paper is also interesting. english isnt my native (and the paper is very technical)so i need to ask you:

1)what is the replicase lengh?
2)how many bases it can replicate? (i can see that according to the paper about 24 bases)
3)does it replicate any sequence or just its own one?

1). The ribozyme (an RNA with enzymatic properties including e.g. Polymerase, the activity needed to replicate/copy itself or other RNAs) is about 200 bases long.

2) the ribozyme can not only replicate itself but also synthesizes RNA (>100 bases).

3) It replicates other RNAs too and this replication can produce over a 10,000 fold increase in the number of the replicated RNA

This means that two important steps for abiogenesis can be demonstrated in the laboratory. 1) the replication of genetic information and 2) conversion of genetic material into functional molecules. Both in the complete absence of proteins.

Basically the scientists started with ribose sugars (bases) and built a system that replicates itself and produces other functional molecules of the same kind.
 
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xianghua

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This belief in a hypothesis is different from 'faith'. Faith is commonly viewed as trusting that something is true without evidence. Scientists don't trust hypotheses that lack evidence

agree. do you think we have a good evidence that nature can evolve naturally? secondly: do you think that the best explanation is evolution rather then creation?



1). The ribozyme (an RNA with enzymatic properties including e.g. Polymerase, the activity needed to replicate/copy itself or other RNAs) is about 200 bases long.

this is a huge problem. the chance to get such a molecule is about one in a 4^200. or about 10^100.

2) the ribozyme can not only replicate itself but also synthesizes RNA (>100 bases).

ok. i have found this article and according to this it cant replicate itself:

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/46793/title/Using-RNA-to-Amplify-RNA/

"The 24-3 polymerase ribozyme cannot copy itself, however"

so if it cant replicate itself we cant call it a self replicating molecule.
 
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Life comes from life. Life of the same kind. Every time. Period. That's what the data shows. If you prefer to believe in what has never been observed, and flat out contradicts what has been observed throughout history, that's your choice. Don't try to foist it off on me, though. I like real science, thank you.
I didn't read all of your post but the last part is dead right.

We have no evidence of life coming from non-life: either by special creation or natural methods.

As you say, real science would say 'it's a bit of a mystery' at this point in our knowledge.
 
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