Abiogenesis (Origins)

by broken_cynic , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 01:36 (4637 days ago) @ David Turell

PZ: Ooh, better. This claim is literally true and not a flat-out lie. It's also irrelevant. One of the things you'll discover as you get deeper and deeper into biology is that it's chemistry all the way down. There are no vital agents working away inside a cell, adding intelligent guidance: it's all stoichiometry and reaction kinetics and thermodynamics. 
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> David: Nice use of big words, going nowhere. Non-life is very different than living material. They are entirely dissimilar. -How are they different? Ok, that's too broad and is generally what you were getting at with the rest of your paragraph, so how about this: can you put your finger on the crux of the difference?-> David: Life involves coordinated activity by millions of enormous molecules, and the very giant difference is that this coordination runs on information in the genome. -Life at the level we now observe it does. It is certainly not clear that the first stirrings of a transition from 'non-life' to 'life' would have needed anything so extravagant. Also... 'runs on?' How about, enacts a pattern instantiated from the genome... which then runs. -> David: Life produces its own energy internally. Life reproduces itself. -Er, what? Funny, I thought that all life on this planet got its energy (directly or indirectly) from the sun... and here I learn that we are all perpetual motion machines! (I'm sure that can't be how you meant that... so do enlighten me.)-
> > But it's true that we haven't seen life re-evolving from simple chemicals now, and there's a good reason for that: this planet is now crawling with life everywhere, and life's building blocks that form nowadays don't last long — they're lunch. 
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> David: This is strawman junk. We don't know if life can pop up from simple chemicals, as PZ notes. We really know only what doesn't work in the laboratory.-It's not a straw man at all. He's not saying 'life re-evolves constantly and gets eaten before we notice,' he's saying that the bits and pieces that make up life wouldn't have a hope in hell on their own as they don't have the benefit of millions of years of evolved cooperation/defenses.
 
> > But it's an irrelevant objection, anyway. Nobody has shown me god conjuring people out of mud, either. Creationists have their own problem of demonstrating origins, and they aren't even trying to puzzle it out — goddidit, they're done."[/i] -PZ Myers
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> David: This paragraph of PZ is irrelevant also. But he has pointed out that life is here. And he is right, there are only two choices for 'how', natural chances or a miraculous happening. -Er, at no point does he say that their are only two options (he may or may not agree with that thought, but it isn't addressed here.)-> David: And another problem is that even if a brilliant scientist makes a form of life in his lab from inorganic matter, what has he really proven? Intelligent design can make life! And we won't even know if that's how it really happened.-You are right, it certainly wouldn't mean that 'it happened exactly this way.' It simply demonstrates (proves is a sticky word) that such things are feasible given the chemistry that was available. (Again, meaning the basic materials and rules, not necessarily that we had the starting conditions correct.) It would be a small, but significant step.
 
> David: My conclusion: the odds against chance are truly astronomical, approaching infinity. I respect your opinion that chance did it. But you have to respect my choice based on my knowledge of biochemisty and genetics that life appears to be a supernatural miracle. -Choice? Is a considered opinion really something you can choose to adopt or not? -> David: PZ's polemics aren't worth anything. Use your reasoning, not his, to reach your own decisions. I promise not to quote anyone to you except scientists quoting their results and their conclusions, and I may well disagree with their conclusions, but agree that their results look valid.-As you will, but I have no qualms using the words of others. The sciences, and biology in particular fascinate me, but words will always be my primary domain. If someone is more knowledgeable than I or has simply turned a phrase well, I will borrow (with attribution) at will.-> David: We were taught Sir William of O in med school as a way to reach accurate diagnoses. I trust my own brain every time, even if I am the oldest person on this forum and I know my brain is shrinking. ;> -That may actually be a pretty foundational distinction here. I do not trust my own brain. When my own conclusions and understandings run hard up against well-supported disagreements, investigation is called for.