Speculation on Early life…. What do you think?

[DialecticSkeptic]

An easier explanation than “only one form survived” is that life came from elsewhere, which is why there is no genome type diversity.

“Life came from elsewhere” is not an explanation, but rather a promissory note that an explanation might be had eventually. To those who wonder how life originated, this answer amounts to saying, “A long time ago and not here.” It just pushes the answer back to not only an earlier time but now also to a different place. That is definitely an easier answer—it can’t be falsified—but it actually leaves nothing explained.

You recite the oft-repeated assumption on soup.

Take one of the oft-quoted myths echoed by the previous poster: "the abundant supply of chemical soup" as precursors.

I worded my answer very carefully and it seems you might have overlooked that precision. I said that “the molecular ingredients” of the primordial soup were abundant, not the soup itself, and pointed to “carbon-rich meteorites” as an example of the source of these molecular ingredients. One of our friends, @The IbanezerScrooge, very helpfully provided substantial resources for information on this in an earlier post (2017), showing extensive evidence for chemical pathways that allow formation of life’s key building blocks under prebiotically plausible conditions.. This information pertains to research conducted in the twenty-first century (i.e., it’s not old hat).

But it’s hard to say whether the necessary soup was either abundant or even present, until there is a postulated pathway that determines what ingredients were needed to exist in the first place.

If—and it is a very big if—there is ever a process and pathway defined that could lead to life, you might have a hypothesis to test on what actually happened. Until then you have only speculation. ... Until you have some process defined you have no idea whatsoever of what the needed raw ingredients are, so you have no idea of whether they existed at all, let alone were abundant here.

And that work is done. If you are not aware of such research, then I don't think you are sufficiently informed on the subject you are presuming to debate. For example, see Becker et al., “Unified prebiotically plausible synthesis of pyrimidine and purine RNA ribonucleotides,” Science, vol. 366, no. 6461 (2019): 76-82. And, again, @The IbanezerScrooge provided a lot of helpful references that provide the information which you now know exists. (Whether or not you avail yourself of this information is another matter.)

Again, the well-worn track. But there are many isolated locations of eg post volcanic pools, and more of them created all the time, in which there is no competition at all. No evidence of other primitive minimal life forms ever found with alternative structure, despite pools all the way from very acid to alkaline, and all shades in between and mineral contents.

Where are these “many isolated locations” with “no competition at all,” not even “primitive minimal lifeforms”? You did not identify any.

Indeed, life exists. But, in an argument between (at some stage) created life and life from a chemical abiogenesis followed by chemical evolution, the mere existence of life scores a goal for neither team!

You need to understand the difference between facts and theories. That life arose is a matter of fact. How life arose is a matter of theory. We observe interesting patterns in the data and propose a theory to explain them. The theory is not the observation, it is the explanation of the observation. In other words, we don’t have a theory in search of observable evidence to support it, we have observable evidence in search of a theory to explain it.

As you say, we do not know how [life first arose], and without [that] explanation it cannot be fact!

I said we’re certain that life arose because it’s all around. That’s just a fact. What we don’t know is HOW life arose. One popular idea is an RNA World scenario, but nobody asserts it as fact.

You have no observations or facts.

False. We have one massive, glaring observation: Life exists.

Deriving from this is a substantial scientific question: How did life arise? (Scientific questions neither preclude nor exclude religious questions.)

Related to this question are other interesting observations: The molecular ingredients necessary for the formation of life appear to be abundant in our galaxy.

And we’ve had a number of scientific theories that attempt to explain how life arose, some being more fruitful or explaining more data than others—which is just what theories do. They explain facts; they are not themselves facts. As scientific theories, they’re also falsifiable: They result in predictions that can be tested—and finding life outside our planet would certainly provide such tests, as would not finding life.

You have only supposition—and faith that it was chemical abiogenesis.

No, we have theories (scientific explanations). Faith is reserved for God, whom alone we worship.

God is a religious explanation, not a scientific one. In the same way, having a scientific answer does not provide a religious one. For example, having a well-developed scientific explanation for human reproduction neither precludes nor excludes the religious answer that God knits us together in the womb. Also, knowing that God knits us together in the womb does not provide a scientific explanation for human reproduction.

This is not a zero-sum game, Mike. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive—and some people, like me, want both answers.

So, spare me [the] pseudoscientific claptrap that promotes abiogenesis way beyond the present status. ... [Abiogenesis is] a myth repeated so often it became a fact that everyone echoes.

Nobody has overblown the case. Abiogenesis has been presented in terms of a scientific theory—which is what it is—developed to explain the things we observe—which is what a theory does.

There are not experiments testing what did happen, ...

No, the experiments are testing what could (or couldn’t) happen. (For example, failed experiments tell us, “Not this way.”) Science doesn't traffic in truth. That is the jurisdiction of philosophy (especially theological). Science provides observations and explanations of those observations (e.g., heliocentrism). Its answers are probabilistic; that is, they approximate truth. Is it true the planets orbit the sun, is it a fact? After all, nobody has ever observed that. But we have very good reasons for believing they do.

But I am a scientist.

What is your degree? What is your field of research? And where have you published that research?

At the level of science, there is no evidence whatsoever for abiogenesis—where, when, or how it happened ...

That is verifiably false. I am not a scientist, and yet I’m aware of the evidence. And the extent of my reading has been ridiculously tiny, so the evidence of which I am aware is just a fraction of a fraction of the evidence that is available.

So, perhaps you misspoke there? I mean, you should go through the material provided by @The IbanezerScrooge six years ago (here), select one or two items, and explain how the evidence contained therein is not actually evidence. I am genuinely interested in understanding what you meant.

DNA/RNA cells are too complex to be the first precursors happening as random chance ...

First, I know that cells can contain DNA or RNA, but what are DNA/RNA cells?

Second, literally nobody proposes that first life was cellular.

RNA is ... made in vitro using DNA and phage polymerase, not synthesis from simple chemicals.

The crucial problem with your statement here is contained in the word “is,” because we are dealing with the origin of life. In other words, it’s not about how RNA is made, but how it was made. Would you argue that RNA was not synthesized from simple building blocks? If so, what scientific evidence relevant to prebiotic Earth do you have supporting that argument?

Cells are a huge evolutionary journey with a big fat void of evidence for it.

Cells are not a relevant consideration to a discussion on the origin of life, as they developed a couple hundred million years later.

I think it is a big deal, that in none of the volcanic and other newly created ponds has there ever been a simpler lifeform occurring by the ongoing process that should be abiogenesis if it were ever true to begin with.

My speculative answer explained that. Why didn’t you interact with it?

There is no variety of genome type which an unguided process of multiple life-starts should produce, if the speculation were true.

Wait, who said it was unguided? You just dropped that in the conversation out of nowhere.

As I pointed out to another poster, independent groups can be sufficiently isolated to evolve differently, and to dodge things that wipe them out.

Groups of what, Mike? The answer will prove why this is not relevant to a discussion on the origin of life.

So the idea that ALL new life is gobbled up, or outcompeted, fails to deal with its survival for long enough to be detected in new habitats.

Please provide an example of new life being detected that is not cellular (because cellular life is not relevant to a discussion on the origin of life).

If abiogenesis wants to become credible as more than just wishful thinking, science needs to define an intermediate cell structure and genome of far simpler things , so it could possibly have occurred from simple chemicals whilst having potential to develop to DNA genome.

I have been studying "protocell research" for 50 years since it appeared in new scientist. And nobody has even got close to a practical suggestion of an intermediate form that could have come from simple chemistry. I am all ears if anyone knows of one.

It has. How is it that you're not aware of this? Even I am aware of it, and I don't read a lot of science material.

 

[Mountainmike]

What is your hypothesis for the miracles. Is it repeatable? Does it make any predictions? Is it testable? If not it is not scientific. The best you can say is they are suggestive similar to the spontaneous remission of cancers.

Many of the hypotheses for the building blocks needed for abiogenesis are testable, repeatable and predictive.

I will give it one last chance to have a dialogue without insulting me.



It is time you studied the difference between ontology and epistemiology (what is true and how you can know it) phenomenology about observation. , metaphysics in general . What we observe , what is true, and how we get an incomplete window on truth..

The model of science is just that. It does not account for all that "is" only observation patterns in it. The "explanation" science gives is simply a note of observation patterns. It has little to say of why or what is. What is gravity? Why is gravity? All you know is a pattern of what it "does" and it is that that you label "gravity". You cannot say it will always do it, or do it everywhere. It is limited to the observation set.

So Science - is a study of discerning what is true, but it can only do it within the limits of what it can actually study which is observation so it can only model observations not the underlying truth.. As einstein said of the empirical world (note it is empirical, not fundamental) all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it

So lets look at conclusions arising:
First - Something can be true without a model, even if it makes a fundamental violation of the model.
You can still study it on the basis of evidence of what happened looking for patterns in repeats of it.
Ultimately that may or may not yield a change to the model to accomodate it.

Second. Science concerns patterns. But the nature of those patterns goes from mostly repeatable to only occasional to rarely.
In some cases our observations have a pattern, in some cases only a statistical pattern, in some cases only a long tail observation in which the observation so violates the norm, it is unlikely it is simply statistical noise.

Those with free will are harder to model. So science finds it easier with things, not beings .
There can still be statistical patterns, take psychology - your world? is it?.
Certain forms of statement in copywriting persuade far more people statistically whilst alienating others with reverse correlation. These patterns are not true of all. Did you know a simple question mark in a headline converts far more? (an example of the ziegarnick effect of incompleteness) In that case a statistical pattern is a model. It says nothing of what is going on beneath the surface, it is empirical , but it is a normally reliable observation that marketers use to part you with a lot of money! All are scientific study in nature. They model observation.

Third . To enter the scientific process, you need one of three things.
Something you can make repeat yielding evidence, something that does repeat although you cannot make it repeat, or something for which you develop a model which you can then test.

As conclusion to that.

Abiogenesis ticks NONE of those boxes. It does not repeat so there is no evidence to test . It cannot be made to repeat. You have no process for it. You were not there when the only assumed occurence happened, so you have no evidence to test of that either.
you have "no experience" as einstein stated. So abiogenesis fails to enter ANY of the normal entry points for science.

So you can only speculate on what might have been. That is a legitimate study. At some point you may determine a process, and then you have a hypothesis to test. But at present abiogenesis itself has no process so can have no hypothesis. At best you look at "plausibility" evidence. Not "actual" evidence that it occurred or how..

But Eucharistic miracles, DO repeat, multiple times, places and teams, so there IS evidence to test.
That is one entry point for science. It may not be repeatable. It may have no known process. It might violate all tenets of the normal model.
But it is still an entry point for science to test because "all knowledge of reality starts from experience" said einstein.

The point I make, is it is valid science if there is evidence, or a model to test.
So abiogenesis fails, eucharistic miracles succeed that criterion.

But BOTH are legitimate subjects for scientific study which after all is only a search for truth.
Sometimes blue sky thinking is needed on pure speculation..

But abiogenesis is speculation only of what might have been,
eucharistic miracles are investigation of what actually happened.
EM are far higher up the scale.

Does it matter if evidence is permanently irreconcilable with the science? No.

The truth of experience trumps the model.
The model will change even if the universe does not. Even hawking admitted to model dependent reality. That no single model can account for it all. Multiple confliucting models are needed. The trick is knowing which to use. (goodbye the theory of everything.

Take prophesy instead: it breaches fundamental tenets of the axiomatic model . Transubstantiation really messes up the model of matter.
Does it matter? Not really. The model is just a model and useful for predicting even if it cannot predict everything. Mainly because it is a model, not the underlying reality.

There is a tendency now, to say what breaches the model is therefore fantasy.
All who say it, fail to understand science. Or epistemiology vs ontology.
Or indeed what einstein said "it starts and ends with experience". We have experience of eucharistic miracles. None of abiogenesis.

 

[Mountainmike]

“Life came from elsewhere” is not an explanation, but rather a promissory note that an explanation might be had eventually. To those who wonder how life originated, this answer amounts to saying, “A long time ago and not here.” It just pushes the answer back to not only an earlier time but now also to a different place. That is definitely an easier answer—it can’t be falsified—but it actually leaves nothing explained.






I worded my answer very carefully and it seems you might have overlooked that precision. I said that “the molecular ingredients” of the primordial soup were abundant, not the soup itself, and pointed to “carbon-rich meteorites” as an example of the source of these molecular ingredients. One of our friends, @The IbanezerScrooge, very helpfully provided substantial resources for information on this in an earlier post (2017), showing extensive evidence for chemical pathways that allow formation of life’s key building blocks under prebiotically plausible conditions.. This information pertains to research conducted in the twenty-first century (i.e., it’s not old hat).






And that work is done. If you are not aware of such research, then I don't think you are sufficiently informed on the subject you are presuming to debate. For example, see Becker et al., “Unified prebiotically plausible synthesis of pyrimidine and purine RNA ribonucleotides,” Science, vol. 366, no. 6461 (2019): 76-82. And, again, @The IbanezerScrooge provided a lot of helpful references that provide the information which you now know exists. (Whether or not you avail yourself of this information is another matter.)




Where are these “many isolated locations” with “no competition at all,” not even “primitive minimal lifeforms”? You did not identify any.




You need to understand the difference between facts and theories. That life arose is a matter of fact. How life arose is a matter of theory. We observe interesting patterns in the data and propose a theory to explain them. The theory is not the observation, it is the explanation of the observation. In other words, we don’t have a theory in search of observable evidence to support it, we have observable evidence in search of a theory to explain it.




I said we’re certain that life arose because it’s all around. That’s just a fact. What we don’t know is HOW life arose. One popular idea is an RNA World scenario, but nobody asserts it as fact.




False. We have one massive, glaring observation: Life exists.

Deriving from this is a substantial scientific question: How did life arise? (Scientific questions neither preclude nor exclude religious questions.)

Related to this question are other interesting observations: The molecular ingredients necessary for the formation of life appear to be abundant in our galaxy.

And we’ve had a number of scientific theories that attempt to explain how life arose, some being more fruitful or explaining more data than others—which is just what theories do. They explain facts; they are not themselves facts. As scientific theories, they’re also falsifiable: They result in predictions that can be tested—and finding life outside our planet would certainly provide such tests, as would not finding life.




No, we have theories (scientific explanations). Faith is reserved for God, whom alone we worship.

God is a religious explanation, not a scientific one. In the same way, having a scientific answer does not provide a religious one. For example, having a well-developed scientific explanation for human reproduction neither precludes nor excludes the religious answer that God knits us together in the womb. Also, knowing that God knits us together in the womb does not provide a scientific explanation for human reproduction.

This is not a zero-sum game, Mike. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive—and some people, like me, want both answers.




Nobody has overblown the case. Abiogenesis has been presented in terms of a scientific theory—which is what it is—developed to explain the things we observe—which is what a theory does.




No, the experiments are testing what could (or couldn’t) happen. (For example, failed experiments tell us, “Not this way.”) Science doesn't traffic in truth. That is the jurisdiction of philosophy (especially theological). Science provides observations and explanations of those observations (e.g., heliocentrism). Its answers are probabilistic; that is, they approximate truth. Is it true the planets orbit the sun, is it a fact? After all, nobody has ever observed that. But we have very good reasons for believing they do.




What is your degree? What is your field of research? And where have you published that research?




That is verifiably false. I am not a scientist, and yet I’m aware of the evidence. And the extent of my reading has been ridiculously tiny, so the evidence of which I am aware is just a fraction of a fraction of the evidence that is available.

So, perhaps you misspoke there? I mean, you should go through the material provided by @The IbanezerScrooge six years ago (here), select one or two items, and explain how the evidence contained therein is not actually evidence. I am genuinely interested in understanding what you meant.




First, I know that cells can contain DNA or RNA, but what are DNA/RNA cells?

Second, literally nobody proposes that first life was cellular.




The crucial problem with your statement here is contained in the word “is,” because we are dealing with the origin of life. In other words, it’s not about how RNA is made, but how it was made. Would you argue that RNA was not synthesized from simple building blocks? If so, what scientific evidence relevant to prebiotic Earth do you have supporting that argument?




Cells are not a relevant consideration to a discussion on the origin of life, as they developed a couple hundred million years later.




My speculative answer explained that. Why didn’t you interact with it?




Wait, who said it was unguided? You just dropped that in the conversation out of nowhere.




Groups of what, Mike? The answer will prove why this is not relevant to a discussion on the origin of life.




Please provide an example of new life being detected that is not cellular (because cellular life is not relevant to a discussion on the origin of life).




It has. How is it that you're not aware of this? Even I am aware of it, and I don't read a lot of science material.

There is such a lot in there I am not going blow for blow.

On the first point I agree. Life from elsewhere, pushes the problem elsewhere, but does not solve it .

What it DOES do is explain the lack of evidence of repeated starts of life, or diversity in cell structure or genome which is a hole in abiogenesis arguments.
Those are the "groups" I mentioned . Independent starts of life with no guidance would be EXPECTED to diverge in genome type.
So Why is all the life we know of the same form. Groups of different genome type, can be sufficiently isolated to at least be found even if they ultimately lose a competition if exposed to one, particularly if life events are still continuing. Why they dont appear to continue is another explanation abiogenesis believers need to fill.

Creation (or came on the boots of little green men) are both instances of "elswhere" that obviate the need for abiogenesis from simple chemicals or having precursors on earth,

On a middle point, You confirm I think that DNA/RNA was (likely) not the first genome, ( I put the two with a slash between because when I say what preceded DNA, because many then say RNA which is fatuous answer in terms of the complexity, RNA world does NOT solve the problem) . RNA and DNA are both similar complexity. So I bracket the two together.

But you also illustrate the problem I highlight. The first genome arguably cannot have been DNA/RNA But There is no statement of what genome may have preceded that , pathway to it or pathway from it. Too many people ignore the MASSIVE evolution from what can only have been simple life start to what are presently horrendously complex cells.

I do not need to provide evidence of non cellular life.
I am not the one proposing it! Or that all other life start forms were outcompeted on the journey.
It is an abiogenesis believers argument aimed at explaining the lack of diversity of genome form or lack of evidence of other life starts..
Ask the abiogenesis believers why they believe what they believe!


Evolution is mostly unknown , just like abiogenesis, if you consider cell development as part of evolution!. If you know of an actual process from simple chemicals to an actual cell capable of darwinian evolution, and you can tell me the genome form, I am all ears.

I will wager you do not. You will speak of (eg self catalysing enzymes )whatever. Bits of a maybe process that may or not have been part of what may or may not have happened. But finding a heap of bricks, is not evidence of a self designing house.

And as I said on "Building blocks" until you know the process, you have no idea what precursors were needed, so no idea whether building blocks existed let alone in abundance. I have read all the wishful thinking repeated so often they became facts. It is pseudoscience until you have a process.

My background repeated many times is electronic physics which spans into chemistry for obvious reasons , my science career in military hush hush stuff. Broadly in math modelling of a wide range. Of what I am not allowed to say. Academia did not appeal. They like many other parts of the scientific establishment do not write papers, indeed are not allowed to. It can be galling to see an idea you studied years before, published in media credited to someone else! One area of many in which i specialised was mathematical adaptive optimization and hill climbing in state space models. Thats how I know what dawkins says about life "climbing mount improbable" is complete bunk, written by someone commenting in an area way outside his expertise( as he often does) Sadly people WANT to believe him!

However it also helps on this that my other half is a molecular biologist in at the beginning of sequencing, and gene editing/ therapy at director level. So I was speaking ACGT long before most had even heard of them!. My first look at protocells was 50 years ago. It does not seem to have advanced much since.

But It does not matter who I am, my argument on the void of knowledge that is genome structure and cell evolution from abiogenesis is true or false whoever says it.

By the way. I learn all the time. If you do have a structure of an early cell AND a plausible process to it/ from it, I am fascinated.
Please DO Tell me about it.
I might start to believe in abiogenesis and cell evolution if anyone comes up with a plausible path.

 

[Frank Robert]

I will give it one last chance to have a dialogue without insulting me.



It is time you studied the difference between ontology and epistemiology (what is true and how you can know it) phenomenology about observation. , metaphysics in general . What we observe , what is true, and how we get an incomplete window on truth..

The model of science is just that. It does not account for all that "is" only observation patterns in it. The "explanation" science gives is simply a note of observation patterns. It has little to say of why or what is. What is gravity? Why is gravity? All you know is a pattern of what it "does" and it is that that you label "gravity". You cannot say it will always do it, or do it everywhere. It is limited to the observation set.

So Science - is a study of discerning what is true, but it can only do it within the limits of what it can actually study which is observation so it can only model observations not the underlying truth.. As einstein said of the empirical world (note it is empirical, not fundamental) all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it

So lets look at conclusions arising:
First - Something can be true without a model, even if it makes a fundamental violation of the model.
You can still study it on the basis of evidence of what happened looking for patterns in repeats of it.
Ultimately that may or may not yield a change to the model to accomodate it.

Second. Science concerns patterns. But the nature of those patterns goes from mostly repeatable to only occasional to rarely.
In some cases our observations have a pattern, in some cases only a statistical pattern, in some cases only a long tail observation in which the observation so violates the norm, it is unlikely it is simply statistical noise.

Those with free will are harder to model. So science finds it easier with things, not beings .
There can still be statistical patterns, take psychology - your world? is it?.
Certain forms of statement in copywriting persuade far more people statistically whilst alienating others with reverse correlation. These patterns are not true of all. Did you know a simple question mark in a headline converts far more? (an example of the ziegarnick effect of incompleteness) In that case a statistical pattern is a model. It says nothing of what is going on beneath the surface, it is empirical , but it is a normally reliable observation that marketers use to part you with a lot of money! All are scientific study in nature. They model observation.

Third . To enter the scientific process, you need one of three things.
Something you can make repeat yielding evidence, something that does repeat although you cannot make it repeat, or something for which you develop a model which you can then test.

As conclusion to that.

Abiogenesis ticks NONE of those boxes. It does not repeat so there is no evidence to test . It cannot be made to repeat. You have no process for it. You were not there when the only assumed occurence happened, so you have no evidence to test of that either.
you have "no experience" as einstein stated. So abiogenesis fails to enter ANY of the normal entry points for science.

So you can only speculate on what might have been. That is a legitimate study. At some point you may determine a process, and then you have a hypothesis to test. But at present abiogenesis itself has no process so can have no hypothesis. At best you look at "plausibility" evidence. Not "actual" evidence that it occurred or how..

But Eucharistic miracles, DO repeat, multiple times, places and teams, so there IS evidence to test.
That is one entry point for science. It may not be repeatable. It may have no known process. It might violate all tenets of the normal model.
But it is still an entry point for science to test because "all knowledge of reality starts from experience" said einstein.

The point I make, is it is valid science if there is evidence, or a model to test.
So abiogenesis fails, eucharistic miracles succeed that criterion.

But BOTH are legitimate subjects for scientific study which after all is only a search for truth.
Sometimes blue sky thinking is needed on pure speculation..

But abiogenesis is speculation only of what might have been,
eucharistic miracles are investigation of what actually happened.
EM are far higher up the scale.

Does it matter if evidence is permanently irreconcilable with the science? No.

The truth of experience trumps the model.
The model will change even if the universe does not. Even hawking admitted to model dependent reality. That no single model can account for it all. Multiple confliucting models are needed. The trick is knowing which to use. (goodbye the theory of everything.

Take prophesy instead: it breaches fundamental tenets of the axiomatic model . Transubstantiation really messes up the model of matter.
Does it matter? Not really. The model is just a model and useful for predicting even if it cannot predict everything. Mainly because it is a model, not the underlying reality.

There is a tendency now, to say what breaches the model is therefore fantasy.
All who say it, fail to understand science. Or epistemiology vs ontology.
Or indeed what einstein said "it starts and ends with experience". We have experience of eucharistic miracles. None of abiogenesis.

TL:dr

 

[Mountainmike]

TL:dr

You wanted a response to what is a complicated question, I gave you one: refusing to read it says it all.
Alas real science IS complicated in an uncertain world . Everything you think you know comes with caveats on the nature of reality and observation.
There are no useful soundbite answers past 10th grade, if that’s what you wanted.


Do not expect any other responses.

A summary?
Abiogenesis does not presently qualify for scientific investigation or hypothesis, only speculation.
It fails to meet one of the criteria Needed. It does not repeat. It cannot be repeated. There is no process deternined for it. There is no actual evidence of when, where or what happened.

But Eucharistic miracles do Qualify. They have repeated in several places. Leaving contemporary evidence.
As Einstein said “ it starts and finishes with experience”. But that’s science for you.

 

[Frank Robert]

You wanted a response to what is a complicated question, I gave you one, not reading it says it all.
Alas real science IS complicated in an uncertain world.
.There are no useful soundbite answers past 10th grade, if that’s what you wanted.
Do not expect any other responses.

A summary?
Abiogenesis does not presently qualify for scientific investigation or hypothesis, only speculation.

Thanks for the summary. Please support your claim that abiogenesis is not scientific investigation.

What is Scientific Investigation?​

Scientific investigation is the pursuit of asking and attempting to answer a question. What makes this investigation scientific is the specific use of the scientific method to investigate the question. The scientific method is a step-by-step process that scientists follow: ask a question, form a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, analyze data, and draw conclusions. By following these steps, scientists and students conduct investigations and experiments to answer questions such as: Does the weight of a paper airplane affect how far it can fly?​

My claim was about building blocks, i.e. a step-by-step process which scientists follow. Miller and Urey tested the hypothesis that life on Earth developed out of nonliving matter in a possible process called abiogenesis. There are dozens hypotheses, perhaps hundreds that have added building blocks leading to abiogenesis . Perhaps you have a definition for scientific investigation that precludes the study of abiogenesis that spawned so many scientific experiments and hypotheses form dozens of major universities throughout the world.

Abiogenesis is a scientific theory

But Eucharistic miracles do Qualify. They have repeated , Leaving contemporary evidence.
As Einstein said “ it starts and finishes with experience”

I have never denied that there is evidence for such past events. Are there any present or future experiments or hypotheses generated from these past events. How have these past events furthered science in general. What is being investigated about them that make them a scientific investigation. Can we build on them like we can on Miller-Urey. I don't mean to insulting, but if you want to be credible you need to support your claims.

I have refereed to spontaneous remission of cancer. Do a search on "hypotheses for spontaneous cancer remission."

 

[Mountainmike]

Thanks for the summary. Please support your claim that abiogenesis is not scientific investigation.

What is Scientific Investigation?​

Scientific investigation is the pursuit of asking and attempting to answer a question. What makes this investigation scientific is the specific use of the scientific method to investigate the question. The scientific method is a step-by-step process that scientists follow: ask a question, form a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, analyze data, and draw conclusions. By following these steps, scientists and students conduct investigations and experiments to answer questions such as: Does the weight of a paper airplane affect how far it can fly?​

My claim was about building blocks, i.e. a step-by-step process which scientists follow. Miller and Urey tested the hypothesis that life on Earth developed out of nonliving matter in a possible process called abiogenesis. There are dozens hypotheses, perhaps hundreds that have added building blocks leading to abiogenesis . Perhaps you have a definition for scientific investigation that precludes the study of abiogenesis that spawned so many scientific experiments and hypotheses form dozens of major universities throughout the world.

Abiogenesis is a scientific theory

I have never denied that there is evidence for such past events. Are there any present or future experiments or hypotheses generated from these past events. How have these past events furthered science in general. What is being investigated about them that make them a scientific investigation. Can we build on them like we can on Miller-Urey. I don't mean to insulting, but if you want to be credible you need to support your claims.

I have refereed to spontaneous remission of cancer. Do a search on "hypotheses for spontaneous cancer remission."

if you think abiogenesis is a theory, you clearly don’t know what a theory is- go back to school.
Then we can have a conversation.
Abiogenesis itself does not even qualify as a valid hypothesis.
Miller Urey neither tested nor concluded what wishful thinkers assume it did.

But then I am a scientist that speaks science languages, not a wishful thinker that believes in abiogenesis.

 

[DialecticSkeptic]

On the first point: I agree. Life from elsewhere pushes the problem elsewhere, but does not solve it.

What it DOES do is explain the lack of evidence of repeated starts of life, or diversity in cell structure or genome which is a hole in abiogenesis arguments.

Here is another plausible explanation of why repeated starts of life would leave no evidence behind: For one reason or another, at one stage or another, they all went extinct billions of years ago—except for one, some ancestral population which had out-competed all others prior to the Late Heavy Bombardment and came to so dominate the entire planet that it accounts for every form of life we now find (universal common ancestry).

A logical consequence of this scenario is that abiogenesis is still ongoing—why would it stop?—but still leaving behind no evidence and for a similar but more vexing reason, namely, every start fails to survive because it can’t compete with existing life that dominates every habitat and niche, including extremophiles. Well, at least here on Earth these life-starts are not lasting long enough to leave behind any evidence. You see, another logical consequence of this scenario is that life is likely to be found elsewhere in the solar system. And I sincerely hope it is found, and I really hope it exhibits a substantially unique genetic code (given a different repertoire of amino acids to which the triplet code would be adapted).

But go ahead and continue pretending these explanations haven’t been offered.

Independent starts of life with no guidance would be EXPECTED to diverge in genome type. So, why is all the life we know of the same form?

It is seriously weird to hear a Roman Catholic repeatedly talk in terms of life being unguided. That is the language of deists and atheists, not Christian theists. I’m pretty sure such a belief is out of step with Rome. As Denis R. Alexander observed in Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (2014):

One still reads in the Intelligent Design literature of the impossibility that life could emerge out of chemicals, using sinister-sounding [terms like] “blind, materialistic, naturalistic forces.” But wait a minute: These are God’s chemicals, God’s materials that are being talked about here. A mystery bigger than the origin of life is why Christians should ascribe pagan-sounding characteristics to God’s world. Is this God’s world or isn’t it?
​

At any rate, I would likewise expect all these different starts of life to have perhaps widely divergent genetic codes. Well, maybe. Assuming stereochemical affinity is not a thing, but it may be. Anyway, none of those other starts succeeded here—obviously. But that’s what drives my hope that life is found elsewhere in the solar system with a substantially unique genetic code (based on a different set of amino acids). On this planet, though, I would expect to find only one genetic code in virtually every form of life discovered. Why? Because I happen to suspect that evolution is true, wherein all life is descended from a common ancestral population arising from the only successful start of life.

Creation (or came on the boots of little green men) are both instances of "elswhere" that obviate the need for abiogenesis from simple chemicals or having precursors on earth,

No, creation and panspermia do not obviate (remove) the need for a scientific theory on the origin of life. All they do is punt the issue. How did life arise? The former says, “God did it.” Yes, but how? “By doing it.” Alrighty then. And the latter says, “A long time ago and not here.” Neither one even attempts to answer the question.

[You agree that] DNA/RNA was (likely) not the first genome ... [but] there is no statement of what genome may have preceded that ...

There is no such description in my posts, correct, but there certainly is in the literature. I know because I was just reading one tonight. It is unfortunate that you are so insufficiently informed.

Too many people ignore the MASSIVE evolution from what can only have been simple life start to what are presently horrendously complex cells.

“Too many people,” you claim—a clear example of weasel words, giving the impression that something specific and meaningful has been said when in fact it’s a baseless and empty claim—one which you can easily deny or back-pedal from if someone were to ask you, “Who, specifically, has ignored the massive evolution involved going from simple life to complex cellular life?” I mean, if it really is “too many” people, it should be relatively easy name one or two along with cited quotes that demonstrate it.

I do not need to provide evidence of non-cellular life. I am not the one proposing it!

You hinted at new life being detected in new habitats when I was talking about ongoing life-starts failing to compete with existing life and going extinct. New life certainly can be discovered, but it is always cellular and exhibiting the same genetic code (i.e., the “existing life” I mentioned). It is never a new life-start (abiogenesis), which is what I was talking about. That’s what I needed you to understand.

My background repeated many times is electronic physics which spans into chemistry for obvious reasons , my science career in military hush hush stuff. Broadly in math modelling of a wide range. Of what I am not allowed to say. Academia did not appeal. They like many other parts of the scientific establishment do not write papers, indeed are not allowed to. It can be galling to see an idea you studied years before, published in media credited to someone else!

“I am a scientist.”

“Scientists have graduate degrees and conduct research to advance knowledge in the natural sciences. What is your degree, research, and published work?”

“Listen, I have sciencey experience—but it’s top secret—so I’m a scientist.”

By the way, I learn all the time. If you do have a structure of an early cell AND a plausible process to it or from it, I am fascinated. Please do tell me about it. I might start to believe in abiogenesis and cell evolution, if anyone comes up with a plausible path.

Nothing you have said has given the impression of someone with an open mind.

 

[Mountainmike]

Here is another plausible explanation of why repeated starts of life would leave no evidence behind: For one reason or another, at one stage or another, they all went extinct billions of years ago—except for one, some ancestral population which had out-competed all others prior to the Late Heavy Bombardment and came to so dominate the entire planet that it accounts for every form of life we now find (universal common ancestry).

A logical consequence of this scenario is that abiogenesis is still ongoing—why would it stop?—but still leaving behind no evidence and for a similar but more vexing reason, namely, every start fails to survive because it can’t compete with existing life that dominates every habitat and niche, including extremophiles. Well, at least here on Earth these life-starts are not lasting long enough to leave behind any evidence. You see, another logical consequence of this scenario is that life is likely to be found elsewhere in the solar system. And I sincerely hope it is found, and I really hope it exhibits a substantially unique genetic code (given a different repertoire of amino acids to which the triplet code would be adapted).

But go ahead and continue pretending these explanations haven’t been offered.




It is seriously weird to hear a Roman Catholic repeatedly talk in terms of life being unguided. That is the language of deists and atheists, not Christian theists. I’m pretty sure such a belief is out of step with Rome. As Denis R. Alexander observed in Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (2014):

​

One still reads in the Intelligent Design literature of the impossibility that life could emerge out of chemicals, using sinister-sounding [terms like] “blind, materialistic, naturalistic forces.” But wait a minute: These are God’s chemicals, God’s materials that are being talked about here. A mystery bigger than the origin of life is why Christians should ascribe pagan-sounding characteristics to God’s world. Is this God’s world or isn’t it?​

​

At any rate, I would likewise expect all these different starts of life to have perhaps widely divergent genetic codes. Well, maybe. Assuming stereochemical affinity is not a thing, but it may be. Anyway, none of those other starts succeeded here—obviously. But that’s what drives my hope that life is found elsewhere in the solar system with a substantially unique genetic code (based on a different set of amino acids). On this planet, though, I would expect to find only one genetic code in virtually every form of life discovered. Why? Because I happen to suspect that evolution is true, wherein all life is descended from a common ancestral population arising from the only successful start of life.




No, creation and panspermia do not obviate (remove) the need for a scientific theory on the origin of life. All they do is punt the issue. How did life arise? The former says, “God did it.” Yes, but how? “By doing it.” Alrighty then. And the latter says, “A long time ago and not here.” Neither one even attempts to answer the question.




There is no such description in my posts, correct, but there certainly is in the literature. I know because I was just reading one tonight. It is unfortunate that you are so insufficiently informed.




“Too many people,” you claim—a clear example of weasel words, giving the impression that something specific and meaningful has been said when in fact it’s a baseless and empty claim—one which you can easily deny or back-pedal from if someone were to ask you, “Who, specifically, has ignored the massive evolution involved going from simple life to complex cellular life?” I mean, if it really is “too many” people, it should be relatively easy name one or two along with cited quotes that demonstrate it.




You hinted at new life being detected in new habitats when I was talking about ongoing life-starts failing to compete with existing life and going extinct. New life certainly can be discovered, but it is always cellular and exhibiting the same genetic code (i.e., the “existing life” I mentioned). It is never a new life-start (abiogenesis), which is what I was talking about. That’s what I needed you to understand.




“I am a scientist.”

“Scientists have graduate degrees and conduct research to advance knowledge in the natural sciences. What is your degree, research, and published work?”

“Listen, I have sciencey experience—but it’s top secret—so I’m a scientist.”




Nothing you have said has given the impression of someone with an open mind.

You use all the tired failed arguments I challenge ,

And for reference, it is not me arguing life was unguided, I am challenging the arguments of those who claim it was.
Argue with them not me.

Reality.
Abiogenesis is a big black hole devoid of defined process.
Without a process to test from “nonlife” to life it is not only not a” theory” it is not even a valid hypothesis.
Yet several on this forum have claimed it is one of the strongest theories!! Which goes to prove :Repeat a pseudoscientific myth often enough in a place liike this and people believe, sadly the kids are taught it too.

So here’s The true status
Abiogenesis is the transition from non life to life
1/ Abiogenesis is a big black hole devoid of defined end to end process, no life to life , without which it is not even a valid hypothesis. Without a process defined you can’t test it.
2/ Without defining the process you dont know the constituents/ building blocks , so you have no idea of abundance or even existence of them. Miller Urey is therefore a total irrelevance, till you do define a process.
3/ But I add to that the equally big black hole of undefined process called evolution from first cells to present Cells You can’t even tell me what genome was used, or whether or when or how it flipped.
4/ And even a respected palaeontologist said the life tree is unsubstantiated guesses devoid of fact.
The status of all of it is conjecture and wishful thinking
The process to life is almost all unknown.

Now of consequences : if abiogebesis was a chemical process you have no compelling argument to say why it is still not occurring.
We still have conditions of liquid water and varying acidity, plenty of new isolated volcanic pools. Sou have no compelling argument for why if it happened once m it isn’t still haopening and why simper/other structure left forms haven’t been found, other than the normal “abiogenesis believers” unsubstantiated guesses at why.

Status?
You know squat.- not when, not where, not how, not what. Nada. Zilch. Nothing.
That doesn’t stop it being a valid source of speculation , or line of enquiry, but that is all it is.

Yet the unscientists on this forum like Robert would have you belive that abiogenesis is not only a theory it is stong.
Dont they teach science any more?
He needs to go back to school before comment again, but they will teach him the same wishful thinking.

You do love your logical falasy . It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is the veracity ot what I say.
but I am a mathematical / physics modeller with several degrees from prestigious universities, and it’s why I question the difference and epistemology vs ontology of empirical and fundamental models

So why do you not challenge such as Robert for knowing nothing About it? Do You reserve that for those whose arguments you don’t “ like” .

I’m in good company:.hawking in the end, when he cut through a lifetime of b/s about a theory of everything
With “ model dependent reslity” He Must have read a book on metaphysics and reality and realised what the clever ones amongst us knew all along.

And since most of the nonsense and wishful thinking / pseudoscience on OOL comes from academia, and the peer review process is proven to be a chocolate fireguard!,( where papers are signed off by similar true believers who fail to find deliberate planted errors) , then I take it all with a pinch Of salt. It’s what scientists do. The argument works or it doesn’t , whoever claims it.

I despair of the lack of scientific rigour of the mush written on forums like this.
it’s hard to have a meaningful conversation.

 

[Frank Robert]

if you think abiogenesis is a theory, you clearly don’t know what a theory is- go back to school.
Then we can have a conversation.
Abiogenesis itself does not even qualify as a valid hypothesis.
Miller Urey neither tested nor concluded what wishful thinkers assume it did.

But then I am a scientist that speaks science languages, not a wishful thinker that believes in abiogenesis.

If anything you are consistent. You make nonsense claims based on your own denial. And you claim you are a scientist.

You have not addressed anything that I wrote you. The only thing you offer to back up your claims is your denial.

Good by and gook luck.

 

[Mountainmike]

If anything you are consistent. You make nonsense claims based on your own denial. And you claim you are a scientist.

You have not addressed anything that I wrote you. The only thing you offer to back up your claims is your denial.

Good by and gook luck.

Look up “theory” and “ hypothesis” is a good place to start if you want to understand or discuss science.
Abiogenesis is not even a theory let alone a strong one. It won’t even become a hypothesis till there is a process proposed , that starts with non life and ends in life, that can be tested. Because that is what abiogenesis means.
if ever there is a process hypothesised, from non life to life, validated by experiment, then and only then, does it become a theory Of abiogenesis. How strong it is then depends on what the theory is!!

Study the basics.

So This thread is seemingly about blind faith in abiogenesis. I gave a true appraisal of the scientific status, which is the status is mostly wishful thinking.

It may be true, I might belief if a theory is good enough, but as yet it’s pure speculation
. You are in denial of that.
There is nothing wrong with speculating , but that is all there is.

Wake up call : many scientists are in private sector to begin with and a recent study found half of scientists quit academia for private sector within 5 years. The ivory tower, cut off from real world , is not what it was . So Your view of who scientists are is as illinformed as your view of science. Ive run private sector and university companies including specialised astrophysics as science director over teams of PHds.
Private sector don’t publish their stuff either. In that case It’s commercial in confidence .

If you mean I Refuse to address your point on cures ,repeated ad nauseam, it’s true since - true or false, it is an irrelevance in the context of OOL. Irrelevant to Creation and evolution.
It becoms relevant on a cures thread.

ive also given examples of modelling in your sphere of psychology to show human behaviour models are empirical/ statistical not fundamental , but they are valid science as well, even though there is no model for what underlies them, there are patterns none the less. They” start and finish with experience” as einstein said. You didn’t even read it.