Spontaneous Life Generation in Lab is Impossible

loveofourlord · Apr 2, 2014

SkyWriting said:
If you've ever built a machine from scratch, you know it's no walk in the park. Now remove half your brain and do it again. Now remove another half and do it again. You may enlist the entire population of the globe in this experiment. But leave one person who will conclude that "stupid" can't do squat. Thanks, and good luck.

I worked in a place with suspected mutagens. Can anyone explain why we avoid them?

You can't work backwards from a modern animal or even single celled organism to extrapelate evolution be impossible because taking one part from a existing thing doesn't work, any more then you can take a few parts from a city and say, "See I remove this part here and the entire city shuts down there fore the city had to have been built as is." just as with modern organisms, modern cities have removed many of the things that arn't needed, but would have allowed for simpler things. Lets look at electricity and power, you remove one substation and could conclude the city couldn't exist without all those substations there, except that they have replaced simpler things in the past that didn't require such thing and so on.

Your lack of understanding of what the sciences say and explain doesn't make your understanding true.

DogmaHunter · Apr 2, 2014

SkyWriting said:
You may be thinkin of the RonCo Life-O-Matic.

And if ice led to the formation of life.....or in that direction...it would be a great point. ICE BRAINS would be a perfect example of what I'd give you some credit for. But ice brains or ice life or ice slime molds are not there to make your case. Or ice processes that that convert dead material toward the direction of RNA would be good.
Give it your best shot.

I don't even know how to respond to this.

Are you being sarcastic? Or do you really not understand the concept of an analogy?

I think I explained my point clear enough. Go back and read it if you're genuinely interested. My educated guess is that you're not. If you were, you wouldn't have posted something as irrelevant as this.

DogmaHunter · Apr 2, 2014

SkyWriting said:
Here's some you can check. Science can only make predictions
about future events.

This is false.
In a murder case for example, a convergence of evidence might lead to a prediction about the whereabouts of a certain person at a specific time in the past.

To deny this, is literally sticking your head in the sand.

All inference about the past is philosophy.

Look up what philosphy is. Because it sounds like you have no clue.

There is no such thing as "scientific history" though educated
people pretend it exists.

So.... we should be listening to uneducated people instead?

Origins theory is one such hoax.

Haaa..... here come the paranoid delusional conspiracy theories...

DogmaHunter · Apr 2, 2014

SkyWriting said:
If you've ever built a machine from scratch, you know it's no walk in the park. Now remove half your brain and do it again. Now remove another half and do it again. You may enlist the entire population of the globe in this experiment. But leave one person who will conclude that "stupid" can't do squat. Thanks, and good luck.

What is your point?

You're again completely ignoring what evolution mechanics are all about.

It's hilarious to see creationists consistently state that "stupid can't do anything" and use that as an argument against evolution theory...

While evolution theory explains EXACTLY how a blind process can "create" complex "machinery". That IS what evolution is.

We even apply this process in everyday applications as an optimization module to come up with better designs for all kinds of things (and this process in many cases actually comes up with BETTER designs then our brightest engineers!): Genetic algorithm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Next time you set foot in a Boeing 747, remind yourself that the distribution system of the fuel in that engine has been optimised through an evolutionary algorithm. It's design is thus the result of RANDOM mutation and non-random selection based on a fitness test.

So, it does EXACTLY what you claim to be impossible.

Want to actually SEE it in action? YOU CAN!

Go here: http://boxcar2d.com/

Leave your browser open for an hour or two and watch this thing EVOLVE cars by starting with random polygons and randomly placed wheels, followed by random mutation and selection based on fitness.

DogmaHunter · Apr 2, 2014

KWCrazy said:
Most evolutionists are smart enough to realize that abiogenesis is impossible, even if they can't grasp that universal common descent is impossible.

There was a time, not that long ago even (less then 200 years) when some of the brightest engineers in the world considered it "impossible" to build a machine that allowed humans to fly.

Our entire society is FILLED with things that were once deemed to be "impossible" by those with a closed mind.

Whenever someone says about a still largely unexplored subject that a certain thing is "impossible", history shows that one should not take their word for it.

Haven't you heard? Nothing is ever proven in science. DNA shows similarities of genetic composition. Common descent is only one way of explaining the similarities.

Not similarities. Hierarchies. Family trees. Not a single gene, genetic marker, dna sequence or even full DNA string can be found in any single species that doesn't fit this hierarchical tree like a glove.

This tree matches the findings of comparative anatomy.
This tree matches the findings of the fossil record.
This tree matches the findings of the distribution of species.

And these matches come from independent fields. This is called a convergence of evidence.

DNA is inherited by off spring. This hierarchical nature of the molecule is how we can tell your biological father from any other person.

Because it doesn't show simple similarity. It shows ANCESTRY.

If you wish to dispute this and want to be consistent, you're gonna have to deny DNA testing works. Even though it demonstrably does work.

Common ancestry is a genetic fact.

KWCrazy · Apr 2, 2014

DogmaHunter said:
There was a time, not that long ago even (less then 200 years) when some of the brightest engineers in the world considered it "impossible" to build a machine that allowed humans to fly.

I said "most scientists."
As for flight, not true. Man has always dreamed of flight. After all, he could see birds fly. He could NOT see life spontaneously evolving from nothing. Once we learned about chirality and knew that it would take 200 left handed proteins in sequence to produce the simplest of life forms; once we knew that controlled laboratory experiments in an oxygen devoid atmosphere that never existed on earth still had a 98% failure rate, we learned that what Pasteur proved remains true; life comes only from life.

Our entire society is FILLED with things that were once deemed to be "impossible" by those with a closed mind.

You mean someone who has looked at the astronomical improbability and realized that he had a better chance of winning the lottery three times in a row.

Not similarities. Hierarchies. Family trees.

Hierarchies and family trees are man made concepts. Of course the animal kingdom fits into the family tree because that's where we place them. It's a given that offspring of dogs will be in the dog family and offspring of cats will be in the cat family. There is, however, no proof that a dog-cat ancestor ever existed. It's all science fiction.

Common ancestry is a genetic fact.

Common ancestry dates back to the ark. If the animals were any more closely related, Noah could have used a canoe.

mzungu · Apr 2, 2014

KWCrazy said:
I said "most scientists."
As for flight, not true. Man has always dreamed of flight. After all, he could see birds fly. He could NOT see life spontaneously evolving from nothing. Once we learned about chirality and knew that it would take 200 left handed proteins in sequence to produce the simplest of life forms; once we knew that controlled laboratory experiments in an oxygen devoid atmosphere that never existed on earth still had a 98% failure rate, we learned that what Pasteur proved remains true; life comes only from life.

Not true! Read this: Article: Earth Without Oxygen

You mean someone who has looked at the astronomical improbability and realized that he had a better chance of winning the lottery three times in a row.

Given time the probability increases.

Hierarchies and family trees are man made concepts. Of course the animal kingdom fits into the family tree because that's where we place them. It's a given that offspring of dogs will be in the dog family and offspring of cats will be in the cat family. There is, however, no proof that a dog-cat ancestor ever existed. It's all science fiction.It is obvious that you haven't the foggiest when it comes to ToE. It is like someone judging the Bible without ever having read it. Bad form my good man. Very bad form!

Common ancestry dates back to the ark. If the animals were any more closely related, Noah could have used a canoe.

Click to expand...

I wonder what Noah fed the dinosaurs? Also what about the sea dwelling reptiles; surely they did not drown?

DogmaHunter · Apr 2, 2014

KWCrazy said:
I said "most scientists."

I don't care who you mentioned. There are no authorities in science. If ALL scientists made such outrageous claims, all of them would be guilty of the same baseless assertion.

As for flight, not true. Man has always dreamed of flight.

Dreaming about it and considering it possible are two different things. Plenty of people believed the brothers Wright were wasting their time.

To drop just two famous quotes:
"Flight by machines heavier then air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible"

"Aerial flight is one of that class of problems with which men will never have to cope"

Both statements were made by astronomer Simon Newcomb.

Once we learned about chirality and knew that it would take 200 left handed proteins in sequence to produce the simplest of life forms;

You are again talking about simplest MODERN life. Nobody expects an abiogenesis process to result in MODERN life. Strawman.

once we knew that controlled laboratory experiments in an oxygen devoid atmosphere that never existed on earth still had a 98% failure rate, we learned that what Pasteur proved remains true; life comes only from life.

No idea where you pulled those numbers from, but it doesn't even matter. I'll play.
2% means it's inevitable to succeed. Only 100% failure rate means that it's impossible (well, within the scope of the experiment, off course... )

Funny.

You mean someone who has looked at the astronomical improbability and realized that he had a better chance of winning the lottery three times in a row.

Given enough trials, winning the lottery 3 times in a row is inevitable.

Let me give you a small lesson in probabilities...
Take a coin, flip it and try to get it to result in tails 10 times in a row. On average, your streak will fail after 3-4 flips, if you even get that far.

Now do the following experiment...
Gather 1000 people and have them all flip a coin.
The goal is to flip tails. Those who have heads have to sit down and can't play anymore.

Statistically, the following will happen:
First flip: 500 people sit down
Second: 250 people sit down
Third: 125 people sit down
4th: 62 sit
5th: 31 sit
6th: 15 sit
7th: 7 sit
8th: 4 sit
9th: 2 sit
10th: one is left standing.

This person has just hit tails 10 times in a row.
See? Improbable things happen all the time, given enough trials.

Hierarchies and family trees are man made concepts

No, they aren't. DNA is inheritable and hierarchical in nature. Only because of this can we tell your biological father from your non-biological father.

Of course the animal kingdom fits into the family tree because that's where we place them.

No, not "we". Their own DNA. It's called phylogenetics.

It's a given that offspring of dogs will be in the dog family and offspring of cats will be in the cat family.

Yes. And both are in the Mammal family. And the tetrapod family. And the animalia family. And the eukaryote family.

There is, however, no proof that a dog-cat ancestor ever existed.

There is. It's the same evidence that proves that your sister your biological sister: DNA.

]
Common ancestry dates back to the ark. If the animals were any more closely related, Noah could have used a canoe.

Sorry to burst your bubble (actually... I'm not) but Noah's ark is a myth.

ChetSinger · Apr 2, 2014

[serious];65309709 said:
Sure. I don't see that as conflicting with his use of natural processes though.

Good, glad to hear it. I draw a distinction between natural processes that we've observed and a natural process that I'm expected to believe without anyone ever having observed. That's all.

ChetSinger · Apr 2, 2014

Loudmouth said:
Is anyone claiming that abiogenesis has to produce a modern bacterium? No.

We can use modern cities as an analogy. In a city like New York, if you turn off the electricity the city ceases to function. Does that mean that every city throughout history had to have electricity? No. What has happened is that after the invention of electricity the functions in the city became dependent on that invention. Whereas once the city could do without electricity, now it can't. Evolution is the same. New functions are at first helpful, and then further evolutionary adaptations become reliant on that new function to the point that removal of that new function is deleterious. This was first described by Muller in 1918:

"thus a complicated machine was gradually built up whose effective working was dependent upon the interlocking action of very numerous different elementary parts or factors, and many of the characters and factors which, when new, were originally merely an asset finally became necessary because other necessary characters and factors had subsequently become changed so as to be dependent on the former. It must result, in consequence, that a dropping out of, or even a slight change in any one of these parts is very likely to disturb fatally the whole machinery; for this reason we should expect very many, if not most, mutations to result in lethal factors ..." --Muller, H. J. (1918) "Genetic variability, twin hybrids and constant hybrids, in a case of balanced lethal factors." Genetics 3:422-499.

After I say I'm unswayed by stories without experimental support, you respond with a longer story? Don't waste your time.

KWCrazy · Apr 2, 2014

mzungu said:
Not true! Read this:

Circular reasoning.
They realize that life couldn't begin in an atmosphere containing oxygen so they invent a scenario in which there is very little oxygen and present it as fact. Water is 33.33% oxygen and 92% of our atmosphere is water vapor. The only reason to assume that diffused oxygen wasn't part of our atmosphere is that life cannot form in an oxygen rich environment.

Given time the probability increases.

The probability never changes, only the number of attempts at that probability. The more improbable things are, the older our earth becomes. It's all a shell game by people trying to find a natural explanation for a supernatural creation.

There is, however, no proof that a dog-cat ancestor ever existed. It's all science fiction.

It is obvious that you haven't the foggiest when it comes to ToE.

Click to expand...

False statement.
If dogs and cats exist via common descent, then there had to be a dog/cat ancestor. What was it? What did it look like? What other species were interwound in its genome? Where can we find the fossil?

ChetSinger · Apr 2, 2014

loveofourlord said:
I go where the evidence leads, and while I'm not 100% convinced on Abiogenesis, I also don't stick my head in the sand and pretend that process isn't possible. At no point in history has rejecting the posability of something helped religion. Evolution is a fact, and alot of information points towards abiogenesis, if it's false, the actual claims will be proven false, not a strawman.

By all means, I agree that we should go where the evidence leads.

loveofourlord said:
If you think some how abiogenesis requires modern bacteria then your not going to do anything towards disproving or proving it. All you end up doing is making stupid false statements, that anyone that knows anything about the subject is just going to laugh. Look at evolution and how just about every argument I see from creationists is based upon false ideas about evolution, and I can't take any of their arguments seriously.

Please don't misrepresent what I said. I never said that abiogenesis requires modern bacteria, but that the story of Godless abiogenesis must result in a functioning cell, because that's the smallest thing we consider "alive".

Assuming you're a Christian as your moniker indicates, please keep your eye on the big picture: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth". Please remember that what we see around us is a creation, and is the result of our God's will.

Belk · Apr 2, 2014

DogmaHunter said:
This is false.
In a murder case for example, a convergence of evidence might lead to a prediction about the whereabouts of a certain person at a specific time in the past.

To deny this, is literally sticking your head in the sand.

Look up what philosphy is. Because it sounds like you have no clue.

So.... we should be listening to uneducated people instead?

Haaa..... here come the paranoid delusional conspiracy theories...

[Pedantic Pet Peeve]

Literally is not a word that is used to give emphasis. The only time he would be literally sticking his head in the sand is if he went somewhere with sand, dug a hole, and put his head into it.

[/Pedantic Pet Peeve]

KWCrazy · Apr 2, 2014

DogmaHunter said:
There are no authorities in science.

Yet amazingly this site is full of such "authorities."

Dreaming about it and considering it possible are two different things.

He was not dreaming the impossible. He could make a rock fly. He could make an arrow fly. It was only a matter of time before he could make himself fly.

To drop just two famous quotes:
"Flight by machines heavier then air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible"

"Aerial flight is one of that class of problems with which men will never have to cope"

Both statements were made by astronomer Simon Newcomb.

That's a good reason to distrust astronomers, isn't it?
Anyone who ever shot an arrow knew that thrust can overcome gravity and that feathers (or wings) made the flight more stable.
Flight is made possible by increasing the speed in which air flows over the top of the wing so that lift is created. It was the advent of the internal combustion engine that made that possible.

You are again talking about simplest MODERN life. Nobody expects an abiogenesis process to result in MODERN life.

Abiogenesis has never resulted in any life in any form at any time.

2% means it's inevitable to succeed.

No, 2% means that under ideal conditions it's possible to manipulate amino acids to create a protein 2% of the time with a 98% failure rate. Then the proteins must all be left handed; a minimum of 200 to create even the simplest of life forms. This must be done in an oxygen free environment which has never existed on this planet. Beyond that, even then the POSSIBILITY of creating life doesn't become the PROBABILITY of abiogenesis actually happening. Moreover, it cannot prove that it did happen.

Only 100% failure rate means that it's impossible (well, within the scope of the experiment, off course... )

Given enough trials, winning the lottery 3 times in a row is inevitable.

That's a fallacy of logic; that insanely improbable combinations will occur naturally just given the right amount of time. It's like saying that a tornado in a junk yard will eventually construct a 747.

Let me give you a small lesson in probabilities...
Take a coin, flip it and try to get it to result in tails 10 times in a row. On average, your streak will fail after 3-4 flips, if you even get that far.

Now do the following experiment...
Gather 1000 people and have them all flip a coin.
The goal is to flip tails. Those who have heads have to sit down and can't play anymore.

Statistically, the following will happen:
First flip: 500 people sit down
Second: 250 people sit down
Third: 125 people sit down
4th: 62 sit
5th: 31 sit
6th: 15 sit
7th: 7 sit
8th: 4 sit
9th: 2 sit
10th: one is left standing.

This person has just hit tails 10 times in a row.

You're talking about a 50/50 chance 10 times. That's 1/2 ^10 or 1,024 to 1. It's still not probable with only 1,000 flips. For 20 in a row you'd need 1/2^20 or 1048576 to one. For abiogenesis the best case scenario is something like (.02)1/2^200. Sir Fred Hoyle, a renowned British astronomer and mathematician, once calculated the odds of abiogenesis at 1 in 10 to the 40,000 power. His calculations are probably way better than mine. Beyond that, though, the odds never improve over time. Each flip of the coin never gets better than 50/50.

Heissonear · Apr 2, 2014

DogmaHunter said:
Please read the discussion history before posting ignorant comments.

The analogy is very valid. The freezer creates a controlled environment (artificially cold). What happens to water inside that controlled environment is exactly what happens to water in nature when it finds itself in a cold environment: it turns into ice.

The freezer is an analogy for a scientific experiment concerning abiogenesis.

It's a response to the rather naive notion that if science one day succeeds in setting up an experiment in which non-life turns into life, that it would only prove that "intelligence" is required to make life, because "intelligence" was required to set up the experiment.

The exact same logic applies to water turning into ice in a freezer.
If the abiogenesis experiment "proves" that intelligence is required to make life, then a freezer "proves" that intelligence is required to make water freeze into ice.

You can't have it both ways.

Your freezer analogy means nothing: it is futile in respect to evidence of how life biochemically and environmentally came about.

Why have the best biochemists and geneticists have not been able to create life from precursor compounds and elements under fixed and controllable environmental conditions, mate? Give me a reason. Why can they not form catalytic enzymes and then orchrastrate from additional compounds DNA? What gives?

And you expect this "event" to "have happened billions of years ago" like there was nothing to it. Get real and show the complexity, mate. The "freezer" analogy does not cut it. Not even close.

.

ChetSinger · Apr 2, 2014

Heissonear said:
The "freezer" analogy does not cut it. Not even close.

Yep. We're surrounded by naturally freezing water, but not abiogenesis. So something's amiss in that comparison.

PsychoSarah · Apr 2, 2014

ChetSinger said:
Yep. We're surrounded by naturally freezing water, but not abiogenesis. So something's amiss in that comparison.

Maybe it does happen, it is just hard to detect or ate up by bacteria.

Heissonear · Apr 2, 2014

DogmaHunter said:
What is your point?

You're again completely ignoring what evolution mechanics are all about.

It's hilarious to see creationists consistently state that "stupid can't do anything" and use that as an argument against evolution theory...

While evolution theory explains EXACTLY how a blind process can "create" complex "machinery". That IS what evolution is.

We even apply this process in everyday applications as an optimization module to come up with better designs for all kinds of things (and this process in many cases actually comes up with BETTER designs then our brightest engineers!): Genetic algorithm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Next time you set foot in a Boeing 747, remind yourself that the distribution system of the fuel in that engine has been optimised through an evolutionary algorithm. It's design is thus the result of RANDOM mutation and non-random selection based on a fitness test.

So, it does EXACTLY what you claim to be impossible.

Want to actually SEE it in action? YOU CAN!

Go here: BoxCar2D

Leave your browser open for an hour or two and watch this thing EVOLVE cars by starting with random polygons and randomly placed wheels, followed by random mutation and selection based on fitness.

.

Why do you correlate matters and think it projects to a past chemical/environmental event of DNA fabrication and replication events for origin of life? Are you thinking your mathematics, genetics, or evolutionary principles in modern time have any bearing of proving origin or life?

You do not see grand Design when you look at it.
.

Michael · Apr 2, 2014

PsychoSarah said:
Maybe it does happen, it is just hard to detect or ate up by bacteria.

Of course people do put various elements together in flasks and beakers that don't include any bacteria. You have to admit that you're basically making excuses for a comparison that really doesn't fly.

He's definitely right about the fact that we all see plenty of examples of nature producing frozen water, whereas we don't have a lot of examples of various elements assembling themselves into spontaneously generated lifeforms.

I'm personally open to the concept of Abiogenesis of course, but the oversimplifications on this issue are a little hard to swallow at times, even for me.

PsychoSarah · Apr 2, 2014

Michael said:
Of course people do put various elements together in flasks and beakers that don't include any bacteria. You have to admit that you're basically making excuses for a comparison that really doesn't fly.

He's definitely right about the fact that we all see plenty of examples of nature producing frozen water, whereas we don't have a lot of examples of various elements assembling themselves into spontaneously generated lifeforms.

I'm personally open to the concept of Abiogenesis of course, but the oversimplifications on this issue are a little hard to swallow at times, even for me.

Imitating the environment of ancient earth isn't easy, but some of the abiogenesis results in labs have been very interesting. Perhaps we need to rethink what we view as alive before we assume abiogenesis is incorrect.

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