near to death episodes (Endings)

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 05, 2008, 17:54 (6108 days ago) @ John Clinch

John Clinch feels there is 'no barrier' to the study of the origin of life. I think there is a barrier in several ways. First, the OOL scientists have gotten nowhere because they have been studying the biochemistry that is currently on exibit in life. To go from inorganic to living organic is a tremendous leap, and they have tried to say, if RNA is small and relatively 'simple', lets research that as a beginning. But to go from inorganic to RNA is in reality a giant leap. And this approach requires RNAzymes, RNA molecules which can relpicate themselves and grow new ones to join together, and then to create a variety of RNAs so as to develop an organized living organism. This approach must image that one RNA molecule will appear somehow by accident and that the accidental process will produce a population of these molecules. Nothing known in chemistry can accomplish that. The logical step is to work with inorganic molecules at a very simple level where there is some type of energy exchange loop as theorized by Robert Shapiro. - Second: what is required here is a reproduction of past history in a time where present conditions are totally different than were present 3.6 billion years ago, which is the age of the best evidence of fossils of early life. The Urey-Miller lightening in a bottle experiment in 1953 did produce some amino acids, but used an atmosphere in the bottle that current evidence has shown was not the correct atmosphere. We know what we find now in living matter, but it gives no clue as to how the huge gap was jumped. In other words, studying living matter gives no clue as to how to start life. It is impossible to reproduce history if we were not there to observe it and report on it. - My moral: As a scientifically trained person I don't have blind faith that science can solve all research issues. After all, we have the problem of Heisenberg's uncertainly principle and we cannot get past the quantum wall of uncertainty that so upset Einstein. It is an absolute certainty that we cannot reach into some areas of our reality. Quantum mechanical formulas work as averages of what the individual particles are doing, or should I say what the waves are doing, since quanta are both at the same time, and only become one or the other when they are measured. There are scientists who claim the universe exists only because we are here to observe it!! Do not have blind faith in science. There are limits.