I can't find out how this happened.

Eauh wrote

I am not trying to tell you the extent of my knowledge but rather trying to find the extent of yours. You say you believe something and I want to know how you can believe what you, so far, have not been able to tell me.

I don't have nearly enough knowledge in chemistry to even begin to take you step by step through a question science has been grapling with for ages. I recomended that you share the amount of knowledge you had in hopes that somebody with more education than me would be willing to help you out.

Your question concerns abiogenesis. Not everybody here knows the ins our outs thereof, or if they do, may not be online, or care to be bothered to explain it. There are places on the web that have information provided by people interested in giving the information for free. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis and go do some searching on your own.

Rat Bastard wrote

Your question concerns abiogenesis. Not everybody here knows the ins our outs thereof, or if they do, may not be online, or care to be bothered to explain it. There are places on the web that have information provided by people interested in giving the information for free. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis and go do some searching on your own.

I have a feeling that he is more interested in flaunting a scientific unknown than understanding abiogenesis. What a sneaky Rat Bastard he is. Actually that is to much of a compliment to him.

Eauh wrote

I am not trying to tell you the extent of my knowledge but rather trying to find the extent of yours. You say you believe something and I want to know how you can believe what you, so far, have not been able to tell me.

How about you read Robert Hazen's Gen-e-sis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins and tell us which words were too big for you?

Accepting the probability of abiogenesis does not entail belief, any more than expressing confidence in the universality of gravity and the speed of light in a vacuum.

DJ KAPUT wrote

Because life exists. We know life had an origin because it is here. We are also able to observer origins by studying self organizing and replicating systems of chemicals which we know compose life.

Just because those chemicals replicate themselves does not mean they hold the possibility of life, does it? If that were the case we should see chemicals create life right now, yet we do not as far as I know. Also you talk about the replicating chemicals, where can I read up on them? Please give me some reference material so I can be come more educated. If those chemicals are real, then what is the catalyst that started life?

Also, just because life existed does note mean you can tell where it came from. If you go into your room everyday and see that a $100 bill is on your bed, the only thing you can infer from that is that it is there. You are unable to say where it came from

DJ KAPUT wrote

I don't have nearly enough knowledge in chemistry to even begin to take you step by step through a question science has been grapling with for ages. I recomended that you share the amount of knowledge you had in hopes that somebody with more education than me would be willing to help you out.

Once ageing you are not able to tell me why YOU believe what you believe. You still have not told me where you got your information from and who thought you. I have asked my question and have yet to find a concrete answer. As far as I am concerned, you are unable to tell me what you believe

Okay, if you want to be so demanding, I will give it my best try. Let it be known that this is not my field, and my understanding comes mostly from popular science books and from my limited college background in chemistry and biology.

In the early Earth, there were likely many simple organic compounds, similar to what is seen today on the moon Titan, whose atmosphere is largely methane, except much warmer, as we are closer to the sun. As a result of energy from volcanic activity and solar radiation, many of these compounds were fairly reactive and could have formed large chains of hydrocarbons and more complex molecules like amino acids. We know that this is possible from a set of experiments done by Miller and Urey in the 1950s.

Some of these molecules may have eventually generated the ability to self-replicate (see the other link I provided). That is, when they reacted with other molecules, they copied their own structure to it. Such molecules would have quickly taken over the environments they survived in, multiplying so many times that it is likely that some of the molecules would have been copied imperfectly - due to chance encounters with high energy photons and the like. Most of the time, this probably would have meant the resulting molecule was worse at replicating, or else it did not affect its ability to replicate, but, with nothing but time and continued energy input, there could have eventually been a mutation that imparted a kind of survival advantage.

Within a fairly reasonable period of time, there would likely have been molecules produced by random mutations capable of doing all sorts of things. Some would have the ability to self-replicate using other replicators as raw material, thus becoming a kind of proto-carnivore. It stands to reason that such replicators would have a distinct survival advantage, and that soon the only ones to be found would have to be capable of protecting themselves while also replicating more efficiently than their peers. The replicators would gain a survival advantage from creating other compounds to act as enzymes. This probably happened in, among others, a kind of Ribonucleic Acid, which we know are often capable of both replicating themselves and forming protective infrastructure. For examples, see retroviruses like HIV, although this is slightly different, as they have developed the ability to use other cell's machinery to replicate.

It is also relatively easy for a replicator with such enzymatic powers to produce quantities of phospholipids - or some such substance -, which consist of hydrophilic "heads" with hydrophobic "tails". When placed in water, these naturally self-assemble, by simple, deterministic electrostatic forces, into layers, which can rather easily fold back on themselves to form a complete shield against the outside environment.

One could argue that such a structure, which is self-replicating and separated from its environment, qualifies as a living cell, although it is not nearly as complicated as even the simplest forms of life found today. Given that such proto-cells would be in constant competition with their neighbors for raw materials and for energy, however, the environment would benefit those who are most efficient and and have the most effective mechanisms. It does not, then, take much to imagine that it is possible, given billions of years, for complex cellular processes to develop, as natural selection would be thrown into full gear.

I may be quite wrong here, but I believe that it is nonetheless possible. It, along with an understanding of Natural Selection and the mechanisms by which further speciation and development may occur is a satisfactory aswer to me.

Rat Bastard wrote

Your question concerns abiogenesis. Not everybody here knows the ins our outs thereof, or if they do, may not be online, or care to be bothered to explain it. There are places on the web that have information provided by people interested in giving the information for free. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis and go do some searching on your own.

Well for some reason everyone here believes what everyone else is saying. Why believe something you are not sure of and can’t explain yourself? Why tell me to find out myself when something moves you to believe the way you did. Why not tell me what it is that moved you to believe that chemicals formed a living cell? Instead you are un able to tell me how it all happen just that it did happen.

We trust the scientists and investigators who have done their homework on the matter. These scientists, et al, have had their work vetted over centuries (and yes, have been found to have made mistakes, which were corrected), and we now take that knowledge as the closest to the true answer. If you are here to have a concise encyclopedia of abiogenesis poured via funnel into your head, this would lead me to believe your are just another theist troll out to make atheists look like fools because they can't pop off answers to your vague questions. You are just going to have to do your homework. The link I provided is a good start- vetted by scientists, and the accepted closest approximation to what is likely to be the real story.

Schemanista, this one is at shitpeon to knight's four, at this point. It is just asking questions in an attempt to get somebody to commit. I smell a troll. I will ignore it henceforth.

Eauh wrote

Just because those chemicals replicate themselves does not mean they hold the possibility of life, does it? If that were the case we should see chemicals create life right now, yet we do not as far as I know. Also you talk about the replicating chemicals, where can I read up on them? Please give me some reference material so I can be come more educated. If those chemicals are real, then what is the catalyst that started life?

We don't see new life being created because it takes such large amounts of time for this to occur. I believe somebody posted some information on self replicating systems earlier in this thread.

Eauh wrote

Also, just because life existed does note mean you can tell where it came from. If you go into your room everyday and see that a $100 bill is on your bed, the only thing you can infer from that is that it is there. You are unable to say where it came from

I never claimed that this tells us where it came from, only that it has an origin. I was responding to your earlier posts in which you said you couldn't believe in something that didn't have an explanation. We don't need to be able to know how abiogenesis occured in order to come to the conclusion that it did.

Eauh wrote

Just because those chemicals replicate themselves does not mean they hold the possibility of life, does it? If that were the case we should see chemicals create life right now, yet we do not as far as I know. Also you talk about the replicating chemicals, where can I read up on them? Please give me some reference material so I can be come more educated. If those chemicals are real, then what is the catalyst that started life?

Also, just because life existed does note mean you can tell where it came from. If you go into your room everyday and see that a $100 bill is on your bed, the only thing you can infer from that is that it is there. You are unable to say where it came from

I gave you a link on self-replicating chemicals several posts ago. Please take the time to read it before accusing others of being lazy. You can also look to my longer post above, in the Miller-Urey Experiment.

As to the formation of life, it is obvious that we are talking about very protracted time spans here, on the order of billions of years, and it is also implicit in the explanation above that existing life would have mechanisms for the destruction of undeveloped proto-life. This is why we see only one main type of life on this planet.

It is true that we do not know for sure where life originally came from. It has been shown that it is possible that life or proto-life may be capable of surviving interplanetary trips in the ejecta of meteor impacts, or that organic molecules necessary for life developed in space and were delivered to Earth in comets, etc.. See Panspermia.

As to the inference that life came from natural sources, it is the only reasonable assumption that can be made. To suggest otherwise is completely insane.

You are also confusing terms. You can only observe that your hypothetical bill is there, but you can infer that someone put it there. It is not reasonable to consider that a deity put it there any more than it is reasonable to infer that a flying spaghetti monster did.

DJ KAPUT wrote

We don't see new life being created because it takes such large amounts of time for this to occur. I believe somebody posted some information on self replicating systems earlier in this thread.

I never claimed that this tells us where it came from, only that it has an origin. I was responding to your earlier posts in which you said you couldn't believe in something that didn't have an explanation. We don't need to be able to know how abiogenesis occured in order to come to the conclusion that it did.

What it sounds like to me is that you are truly unsure of how life formed and all you can say is that we know it is here. So really you are you saying that anything could have started it as there is no way to prove one way or the other?

Eauh wrote

Once ageing you are not able to tell me why YOU believe what you believe. You still have not told me where you got your information from and who thought you. I have asked my question and have yet to find a concrete answer. As far as I am concerned, you are unable to tell me what you believe

I believe what I believe because it is the most logical and consistent conclusion I have come to considering what we know about life and how it has progressed. It makes logical sense that life would come through self replicating chemical systems and it has been shown through experiment that organic molecules can be created in the type of enviroment present in the earths begining. If this theory is shown to be false then I will change my position but thus far it has been nothing but promising.

Eauh wrote

Instead you are un able to tell me how it all happen just that it did happen.

So? What's your point.

We ain't gonna fall for no bannana in the tailpipe routine.

You're not going to mousetrap methodological naturalism, no matter how great your personal incredulity, how clever you think you are nor how many Discovery Institute publications or AIG webpages you've read with rapt attention.

I accept abiogenesis as a valid probability because it's consistent with metaphysical naturalism. The alternatives aren't. Metaphysical naturalism works. The alternatives don't.

Science works, bitches.

Eauh wrote

What it sounds like to me is that you are truly unsure of how life formed and all you can say is that we know it is here. So really you are you saying that anything could have started it as there is no way to prove one way or the other?

That is not what is being said at all. You are ignoring the information being given to you. If you wish to not be considered an ignoramus or troll, please adress the points made above.