How could the first living cell have evolved?

reply to post by ImaFungi


I see exactly where you are coming from now. I suppose the difference between us is that I need some form, even a small amount, of evidence before I can get behind a theory.

I enjoy thinking about things that we have no idea about, and exploring some crazier options for things we know more about, but I can't bring myself to support in open debate, a position that has no basis in fact.

It is an interesting thought experiment, to think of all the things that would need to be predetermined in order to design our universe, or indeed to design the start of life on earth. I'm afraid until someone shows me a few facts supporting this, all it will remain is imagination and dreams.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04

O.C...I don't think you are completely...up...on current experiments that are waiting to be confirmed by various groups...before being published by several very prestigious Journals such as SCIENCE...NATURE...PNAS....and PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS.

The U.S. Military Genetic R&D Division alone has already confirmed the ability to recreate GENESIS...although this is something that you will have to take my word for as I cannot provide proof...thus this is why I am even allowed to talk about it as anyone can SAY something but PROVING IT is another matter. I will just have to hope you can tell the difference in the person who is just saying something and a person who is saying something that is a FACT.

Whatever exists in the World of Academia...if not known by various Agencies both of Military and "CIVILIAN" origin...soon is swept up into this World of both Secrecy and HUGE RESEARCH BUDGETS. THAT...is the ALLURE! Being able to have...Unlimited Financial Backing...as well as assess to prior research that can either save time by process of elimination or confirmation. THE PRICE TAG?....YOU WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED! BUT...you will have the satisfaction of KNOWING THE REALITY! Besides...there was a 99.999% Probability that without these resources...a Scientific Researcher working with a very small budget in the World of Academia....would never have achieved such BREAKTHROUGHS!

Now....if they will just let me keep the JETSONISH FLYING CAR! LOL! Split Infinity

Originally posted by ImaFungi

because if something can contain much more intelligence then a human,,,,, and something can contain much much more intelligence then a human,,,, eventually we will get to,,, do you think something can contain enough intelligence to create and design a universe?

if you answer yes,,, then this universe/nature could have been intelligently designed,,,, if you answer no..... why?

I think I see where you're going with this. Are you saying that, because we humans are always acquiring more and more knowledge, then one day (maybe in the very VERY distant future) we could very well know how to create a universe? And, if we could get to that point, then why is it so hard to believe
that someone/god/alien/intelligent being created THIS universe? Is that what you're saying?

I don't know about anyone else, but I think it's frikkin' brilliant!

reply to post by jiggerj


You call it brilliant?

I call it arrogant and typical Luciferian dogma.

"Man will become God one day"

BS

reply to post by john_bmth


i know, just thought id put that in my post before people started saying to me, personally i think all religion became outdated and unnecessary a long time ago. just waiting for the rest of the world to join me lol

I imagine "life" as a progressional expression of the Universe as it uses up all available excess energy in it's intricate brilliance....sounds pompous but it was the best combo of words I could think of.

On a cynical day you could describe this as life being some form of energy parasite which takes stored energy contained in billion year old atoms that make up matter and "enslaves" these "bits of reality" for it's own purpose.


I love all the research about Abiogenesis and how electricity strikes can agitate carbon molecules but I cant help wondering if we're so used to explaining boilogy and chemistry at the atomic level; we are failing to understand the quantum effects on the sub atomic structures that make up the physical reality that life is a part of and more weirdly; seems to be entirely made up of.

The will of life, as expressed in physical material ( i.e DNA) seems to be equally as weird as Gravity or Instantaneous Information transfer across distance so as we've seen with the Higgs Boson, the deeper you drill into the quantum world; the more interesting it gets.

I'd be the least suprised if science was able to prove life was just another quantum event based around some sort of weird entanglement loop where life straddles the divide between real or imaginary, 1 or 0 and Alive and Dead.

For example if we take a quantum event such as Time ( with possible versions, depending upon dimension) out of the equasion; life cannot exist...if we make time itself unlimited, life stands a very good chance of becoming Godlike if evolution is allowed to cntinue unabated.

Theres some sort of weird Buddhist paradox that implies life is a backwards evolutionary process for the universe creator to see where it came from ... mashed.

Originally posted by IpsissimusMagus
reply to post by jiggerj

 

I call it arrogant and typical Luciferian dogma.

BS

Hello, let me introduce you to mankind. This species learned how to split atoms, to create the nuclear bomb, to take the DNA from a spider and insert it into goat DNA to make silk from goat milk.

Arrogant is an understatement.

reply to post by john_bmth

Come on AIM64C, enough bluster. Enough insults, enough monologues and enough pussy footing around with the issue.

Do you honestly read what you write?

We're 10 pages into this thread already, now would be a good time for you to quit trying to give us the run around the houses and post up the abstracts from papers published in credible journals that support the notion of a designer, the existence of a designer or the refutation of the mainstream materialist hypothesis for life's origins in favour of a designer.

You're using peer review as a veil for ignorance. Peer review existed as a pre-screening process in the out-dated publication processes thirty years ago. The "online age" has completely changed what constitutes peer review, as research is posted and debated in near real-time.

The process of peer review existed to prevent wasting money publishing articles that would damage viewership or perceived credibility.

www.evolutionnews.org...

"Another example is Günter Blobel, who in a news conference given just after he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, said that the main problem one encounters in one's research is 'when your grants and papers are rejected because some stupid reviewer rejected them for dogmatic adherence to old ideas.' According to the New York Times, these comments 'drew thunderous applause from the hundreds of sympathetic colleagues and younger scientists in the auditorium.'"

"[W]hen [Stephen] Hawking submitted to Nature what is generally regarded as his most important paper, the paper on black hole evaporation, the paper was initially rejected. I have heard from colleagues who must remain nameless that when Hawking submitted to Physical Review what I personally regard as his most important paper, his paper showing that a most fundamental law of physics called 'unitarity' would be violated in black hole evaporation, it, too, was initially rejected."

I eagerly await this academic literature.

It has been provided.

The problem is that you don't actually want to read or consider the literature in question. You want to fall back on canned criticisms of work - which are often irrelevant as they miss the point.

There is a key miscommunication at play:

The idea that Evolution and Intelligent Design are at odds with each other.

The issue being discussed (and the issue to which Intelligent Design applies) is that of origins.

The problem is that your criticisms (and most existing criticisms) exist and apply only to misguided attempts to extend Intelligent Design into a debate against post-biotic evolution. Which is an entirely different concept.

We are discussing origins.

atheism.about.com...

The important thing to remember is that evolutionary theory is a scientific theory about how life has developed — this means that it begins with the premise that life already exists. It makes no claims as to how that life got here. It could have developed naturally through abiogenesis. It could have been started by a divine power. It could have been started by aliens. Whatever the explanation, evolutionary explanations begin to apply once life appears and begins to reproduce.

Of course, the same site falls victim to the temptation to engage in ad-hominem debate:

atheism.about.com...

- Whereby any "undefined source of intelligence" must equal god and equate to a creationist agenda.

... Go figure.

Even Dawkins recognizes that Abiogenesis, at least on Earth, may not be behind the origins of the life that evolved here:

evolutionwiki.org...

Of course, the responses to the claim are interesting:

Strictly speaking, probability theory only addresses things that may happen in the future. We can talk about the wild improbability of abiogenesis ad infinitum, as Dawkins does. The probability of the random generation of life from non-life under experimental conditions is so low that it approaches 0. It is a mischaracterization of probability to use this as a science-stopping argument. Abiogenesis occured, therefore an examination of the probability of this occurence is little more than an interesting theoretical exercise.

... Yes, of course, Abiogenesis must have happened. It's a fact. ... We just don't know how yet.

(God made everything. It's a fact. We just don't know how yet.)

... The back-and-forth on both sides is revealing.

More to follow, don't get your panties in a bunch over something you feel is missing.

reply to post by Aim64C

You're doing it again

There's really no need for these great walls of text, just comply with out request and post the abstracts from the published scientific papers.

Not creationist sites (lol!), not "About.com" (double lol!), just the abstracts from the scientific papers. That's all you have to do to completely demolish my position. See, I'm even trying to help you refute my argument here

I'm, sure you understand perfectly well the difference between evolutionarynews.org and a scientific paper so, one last time for luck:

Post up the abstracts from papers published in credible journals that support the notion of a designer, the existence of a designer or the refutation of the mainstream materialist hypothesis for life's origins in favour of a designer. Take your pick, just be sure to post up the abstract where these claims are explicitly mentioned.

If you cannot comply with this simple request and actually substantiate the science you claim supports your argument then at least have the grace to retract your clearly statements.

reply to post by pieleg

I was more hoping for some kind of reasoning as to the logic behind saying 'it's nearly impossible for life to be created on it's own, therefore we must have been designed'.

You don't understand the actual proposition of Intelligent Design.

The case for intelligent design regards the origin of the information and the information processing systems that exist within the cell.

It's not just about probability, it's about known facts. We know that information is created by intelligent sources. It is the only known source of information.

It's at this time, you'll notice I'm alluding to Dembski's work - Which I'm sure you'll argue has "been discredited." Spare for the fact that it hasn't.

rationalwiki.org...

Complex specified information (CSI) was supposed to be a mathematically rigorous attempt to figure out what emerges by chance versus what must emerge by design. CSI like Michael Behe's irreducible complexity relies mostly on evolution being only random. The fact that natural selection can act to make things that appear to be designed is never addressed in Dembski's work. Essentially CSI claims that improbability of a sequence occurring by chance that fits a particular preconceived pattern must mean it was designed.

See my former post discussing the difference between ID as against evolution as opposed to ID as a candidate for Life Origin.

Natural Selection only applies once a self-replicating process exists. Thus, the work applies.

"But Aim, [insert argument about computer simulations or evolution].

Yes, and none of these systems were created to self-originate. They either already existed or were programmed to self-replicate (not self-originate). In many cases of evolutionary algorithms, a selection process is applied without function (a process that cannot be undertaken by natural selection) - but as a comparison to a future goal. This does not properly emulate known forms of natural selection (which are, indeed, applicable in the post-biotic environment where mutations producing an alteration of function - individually or cumulatively - can be selected for by natural factors).

Which means that the only known and demonstrable form of information origin is intelligence. Doesn't mean we can't look for other sources - but one has to analyze each claim to produce complex specified information without intervention skeptically.

The problem is that few people (even in the field of biology) understand the theory of evolution, the theories of abiogenesis, and the challenges facing each (Even evolution faces challenges when presented with organs that are difficult to illustrate having arisen from incremental mutations - the fervor of dissent and supporting sides has made the fact that evolution has difficulty providing an explanation for these an unnecessarily obscure one defended by dogma). The problem is that nobody wants to say: "I don't know." Even worse, few people are willing to say: "I think a few things are possible" - they want to cement themselves to one thought or the other.

Dembski's work readily applies to the origins scenario (Even though he likes to apply it to counter post-biotic evolution - which is unfortunate, and illustrates the damage that can be done by immature intelligence; reminds me of how I was several years ago as a young teenager - choosing the wrong battles for the information and intelligence I possessed).

Interestingly - when you drop the evolution debate from Dembski's theorems, they work brilliantly. To function, evolutionary algorithms require replication to be evident (the sequence is replicated by nature of the program - meaning all deviations are permutations of the source) and impose a process of selection.

When, in actual fact, this view requires the infinitely small chance of life being created to have happened, not once, but twice.

This is a red-herring.

I demand to know what made the pieleg! I will not accept this post - allegedly made by a pieleg - as a construct of intelligence until I know what made it!

It doesn't work, and is not required to infer a system as intelligently designed. If we were to encounter an automated factory on another planet - we would infer that it was intelligently designed by "Forerunners" or "Protheans" - if we want to stick to sci-fi references. This can be exemplified by the Geth in Mass Effect, if you want to geek this out. Whether or not the player was introduced to the Quarians (or told about them) - design would be presupposed in the sentient machines.

Indeed upon encountering the "Reapers" - one of the key questions (ingeniously left unanswered for the longest time) is "who made the Reapers?" Yet there is no more logical reason to assume inorganic life couldn't self-originate than organic life.

reply to post by john_bmth

Not creationist sites (lol!), not "About.com" (double lol!), just the abstracts from the scientific papers. That's all you have to do to completely demolish my position. See, I'm even trying to help you refute my argument here

You're arbitrarily excluding sources - many of which I use are specifically critical of the Intelligent Design argument (at least as far as attempts to apply it to post-biotic evolution).

I'm not going to arbitrarily restrict your sources of information by choosing what I feel appropriate for you:

docs.google.com...:Vj9P758vfZsJ:evolutioncontroversy.net/texts/bibliography.pdf+gordon+taylor+evolution&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&src id=ADGEESi4E4JaPMlSqxYhJmcn6C6wPyDtaR3L7AM_DhzyWr5OIlpwM3AC93N8oiYI1F4w5soh2faulImET12tG5lHmjDYEO398Wrovw2y1IdCDDnVScloMn0BFgFiQVrRdvPOLAwtS5aJ&sig=AH IEtbT44o3yve8FW8YDWOImmfAHr2DlUA

That's a list of works from various camps (though not all-inclusive).

There's a specific reason I avoid posting specific work. A lot of it - on both sides - misses the mark. Intelligent Design enthusiasts often drift way off into challenging post-biotic evolution. Which is an abuse of the ID premise.

Because of this - criticisms of these works are widely available that center around the post-biotic arena - which is not what is in discussion.

In general, there is very little pre-biotic work on either side. Efforts to illustrate the RNA world run into criticisms from geologists who show their simulated environment to be in error and select non-replicating sequences for artificial replication (which injects intelligence into the process).

Works to further simplify the cell also run into similar complications and criticisms. Cells with removed functions are placed into environments filled with compounds that didn't exist, or are sheltered from environmental phenomena (such as thermal factors) that existed and are relevant (IE - you can't argue that thunder storms or other small-area effects would have posed "species ending" catastrophe for pre-cellular replicating processes; but unrealistic thermal settings for the experiment or other global factors apply).

The entire arena is a collapse into childish bantering back and forth between both sides. This is largely due to a philosophical schism - individuals almost violently opposed to anything they perceive as alluding to a deity and other individuals violently opposed to anything they perceive as challenging their deity (or, more accurately - their understanding of a deity). Ridicule is abound on both sides, and irrational arguments and straw-men are set up and set afire in both sides.

Which is why you need to slow down and apply thought to the problem.

If you cannot comply with this simple request and actually substantiate the science you claim supports your argument then at least have the grace to retract your clearly statements.

You're going to have to specify what you would like me to defend. I've made a lot of statements, some with direct citations and others without. You'll find that I'm not simply acting as a "copy-paste" entity. I may share a few points of my arguments with others you are familiar with - but I am not making the same case and often agree only briefly or on a tangent with scientific publications of any nature and topic.

I then take those concepts and process them into my own position. Which is a little more difficult to simply "post abstracts" about or retract. It begs an analytical criticism of its own - which you are interestingly unwilling to apply.

The problem is that we've come to an impasse.

You've hit a rock and a hard place. The rock is the hurdle of the interdependence of replicating systems, and the hard-place is the requirement for a system to self-replicate before natural selection can apply.

You can't move the hard place - you've got to move the rock. And it's proving to be a very, very difficult challenge with an increasing amount of concern that it may not be possible to explain as a 'natural phenomena.'

That displaces the origin of biology to a non-local environment or to an intelligent design (though neither is entirely exclusionary of the other).

From the NCSE, an interesting take on polls of scientists: ncse.com...

Which is why the argument that ID is a "science stopper" is just incorrect. ID ultimately puts a different context on the research being done - it doesn't change the fact that research will be done. You've essentially a poll that says 40% of scientists believe in some context of ID. Doesn't stop them from exploring the design.

reply to post by jiggerj


The first living cell wasn't in our dimension......That is how....

It thought itself into this existence, from where it was before, which is a place that has always existed even before the cell knew itself as a cell.

reply to post by Aim64C


You gonna post up these abstracts or what? Come on, non-designer stance is "vanishingly small" after all

reply to post by john_bmth


what is the opposite of non designer theory?

and if thats what you believe,, why/how then is there design all throughout biological nature? ( id say laws of physics are codes of design/intent for non biological nature)

"How could the first living cell have evolved"?

I believe that all things are living things and as there is a build up of cells and nervous systems, that living being becomes more complex.

A tree for example, has a different consciousness than a human. A lot simpler and peaceful without extreme emotion.

So that which is in cells is living, and formed itself together to make cells.

reply to post by jiggerj


What I was trying to show with that link is that non-living matter can exhibit many of the same properties that living matter does.

And why havent our scientist created life yet? For a very simple reason. We do not understand the process enough to do it in a lab. Life more than likely required an EXTREMELY specific set of conditions to begin. how do we know this?

Well there is only ONE tree of life. Every organism on earth is related and goes back to the same ancestors. Meaning life has only been created once on earth, or that our tree of life killed off every other tree of life, which i personally find highly unlikely, that in a bacterial sense, one tree could completely exterminate another tree. One would always assume there would be pockets here and there of this inferior branch present at least in the bacterial realm.

reply to post by ImaFungi


this is a really bad argument. That is like saying that someone had to design todays weather because it exists.

Scientist attempting to duplicate genesis OBVIOUSLY need to have an environment for the experiment to take place in. ANY EXPERIMENT DOES. They simply try to recreate what type of environment they think they need for the effect to occur in. It does not mean that the original genesis environment was created by an intelligent designer.

Originally posted by Moduli

Originally posted by FOXMULDER147
But we can do that in the laboratory, and still we cannot create life.

Except that we can:
Scientists create polio virus from scratch
Scientists create bacteria from man-made DNA.

From you link:

In this latest study, the team designed a non-infectious gene map for Mycoplasma mycoides bacteria, ordered the map's chemical constituents and assembled those chemicals into a gene chromosome inside yeast cells. Finally, they transplanted the genome into a different species of bacteria, "and booted it up," Venter says, noting "a lot of failed attempts" preceded the success.

The altered bacteria reproduced as blue colonies of mycoides cells (now held in a freezer and awaiting a museum), containing gene "watermark" codes contained only in the synthetic genome.

Altering bacteria using natural yeast cells - whilst impressive - is not "creating life".

It is genetic modification.

Do it without using any natural material and I'll be impressed.

reply to post by Aim64C


Wow, still no peer reviewed articles.

Surely if you are correct and the number of scientists that oppose intelligent design is "vanishingly small", then those scientists who support intelligent design would publish their work in peer reviewed journals.

I'm sorry, but discovery institute propaganda is not a quality source.

Here are examples of abstracts of quality peer reviewed articles in support of the origin of life as a natural process.

articles.adsabs.harvard.edu...

www.medicine.mcgill.ca...

Aim64c should stop simply throwing insults around, and show us some quality research to back up his views.

Let's let the real, quality, peer reviewed evidence speak for itself.

Originally posted by Aim64C
reply to post by john_bmth

 

docs.google.com...:Vj9P758vfZsJ:evolutioncontroversy.net/texts/bibliography.pdf+gordon+taylor+evolution&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&src id=ADGEESi4E4JaPMlSqxYhJmcn6C6wPyDtaR3L7AM_DhzyWr5OIlpwM3AC93N8oiYI1F4w5soh2faulImET12tG5lHmjDYEO398Wrovw2y1IdCDDnVScloMn0BFgFiQVrRdvPOLAwtS5aJ&sig=AH IEtbT44o3yve8FW8YDWOImmfAHr2DlUA

Had to laugh at Gordon Rattray Taylor's name in the link there, a 1930's education and a background in propaganda and psychological warfare! Sounds a lot like the recent posts from aim64c!

This guy couldn't cut it as a real scientist so became a journalist instead, then joined then society for PSYCHIC RESEARCH!!

Yet another reliable source

From the NCSE, an interesting take on polls of scientists: ncse.com...

Wow, actual evidence that scientists who see any involvement of god in evolution are in the minority.

I thought scientists who deny intelligent design are "vanishingly small" in number???

Are you trying to destroy what little credibilty you have left aim64c? Bravo on a job well done