https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNK3u8uVG7o&t=13s

"Abiogenesis – origin of life. Living matter from non-living matter. The origin of living organisms from inorganic or non-living material is called abiogenesis. But abiogenesis is not evolution.

Despite the incredible variations of life we see today, at the fundamental level, all living things contain three elements: Nucleic acids, Proteins, and lipids. These three things had to have been present in order for life to start.

The most important component may have been lipids which make up the cell walls because without a way to encapsulate certain elements, they various chemicals could not come together to potentially interact.

Lipids molecules have a unique structure. The round part loves water. The tail part hates water. So it has a tendency to self-assemble into natural spheres. However, when there are certain salt ions present, it destroys the lipid spheres. But RNA and other functions of a cell require salts and other ions. However, researchers at the University of Washington showed that lipid spheres do not disassemble if they are in the presence of amino acids, precursor to protein molecules. So it turns out that lipid cell walls and proteins need each other to exist, in salty water.

Today, genetic information is stored in DNA. RNA is created from DNA. The simplicity of RNA compared to its cousin DNA, is the reason that most scientists think DNA came from RNA. This is part of the “RNA world" HYPOTHESIS, which theorizes that RNA was the essential precursor which led to the first living matter. But how did the first RNA molecule form from non-living chemicals? This is not clear cut, so here are some theories. RNA is made of three chemical components: the sugar ribose, the bases and phosphate. Figuring out how the bond between the bases and ribose first formed has been a difficult to replicate in the lab because cells in our body require complex enzymes to bring RNA building blocks together before they combine to form polymers. In a 2009 study, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute showed that RNA could have formed on the surface of clays which act like catalysts to bring RNA bases together.

But how did proteins form? In the 1950s, several experiments by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey verified that the natural formation of amino acids, components of proteins, was possible under the atmospheric conditions of Primordial Earth. It turns out that it’s pretty easy to form many kinds of organic molecules, in a wide range of environments.

But having all the precursors get together inside a lipid cell wall does not necessarily mean that they will all come together to form a self-replicating living cell. This is not well understood.

There are creationist arguments such as, if I put all the parts of a watch in a big vat and keep stirring it, a functioning watch is not going to magically form inside the vat. And some cite an estimate by scientists Hoyle and Wickramasinghe showing that the probability of all the chemicals in a simple bacterium arising on their own by chance, is one in ten to the 40,000th power.

But these arguments are oversimplifications. They ignore the fact that sophisticated life forms like current day bacteria almost certainly did not arise spontaneously, but arose in much simpler incremental steps. The actual probability is not how the hundreds of complex chemicals can come together to form a modern day bacterium, but the probability of a few chemicals forming and coming together to form the precursors of life that can chemically evolve over time to form the simplest kind of life form that may have looked nothing like any evolved life form we see today.

But showing how even this chemical evolution could have happened is problematic. Scientists have had trouble figuring out what could have driven chemicals to evolve the complexity needed for biological functioning. But in 2014, Jeremy England, physics professor at MIT showed mathematically that the driving force for chemical evolution may be Entropy. The one thing that distinguishes living things from non-living things is its ability to capture energy and convert it to heat. England argues that when exposed to an external source of energy, such as the sun, any group of molecules will restructure themselves to dissipate more and more energy.

While there is no single generally accepted theory for the origin of life, all credible proposals show that life under natural conditions by a slow processes of chemical and molecular evolution could plausibly result in simple life forms over a long period of time. Do we have proof that this is how life came about – no. At least not yet. Is it plausible – absolutely."

Seems like they're overlooking the obvious.
Viruses have RNA and DNA in them, which are self replicating.
They also have motor proteins that are mechanisms for assembling DNA out of RNA. So the only thing they really need to create life from a precursor of life (viruses) is lipids, which can form spontaneously.

> Seems like they're overlooking the obvious.
> Viruses have RNA and DNA in them, which are self
> replicating.

Not quite. Viruses have RNA *or* DNA but not both. And they are not self-replicating because the viruses lack the infrastructure necessary to reproduce themselves. For that they need to invade the more complex cells of ofther life forms and use their cellular infrastructure to clone themselves.


---------------------
> They also have motor proteins that are mechanisms
> for assembling DNA out of RNA.

Nope. They cannot do that.

Seems like you are the one overlooking the obvious.

1. Where did the DNA, RNA, and proteins in the virus come from?

2. Viruses need a host cell to replicate. Where did the host cells come from?

Interesting analysis and speculation, it's a subject i've long considered and read about ... a tough nut to crack, for sure.

ultimately it all comes down to basic laws of physics on the most fundamental level, expressed abstractly, but capable (at least theoretically) of being embodied in many different instantiations. ...

it all comes down to basic cause/effect, a long chain of dominoes being knocked over and collapsing one by one, and the arbitraging of local energy anomalies (in an overall zero-entropy field) to harness negentropy and thus temporarily overcome the limitations of the second law. ... i suppose you'd also want some method of encoding data to pass on to later iterations of the formula, to make the process increasingly more efficient. ... but there's all kinds of possible ways of embodying such a program

ultimately the question is why is there any perception of anything at all ... what additional useful purpose is served beyond mechanical replication

Onanymous Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> ultimately it all comes down to basic laws of
> physics on the most fundamental level, expressed
> abstractly, but capable (at least theoretically)
> of being embodied in many different
> instantiations. ...

The basic laws of physics "on the most fundamental level" involves quantum processes within atoms, and by extension chemistry. The laws of chemistry have "many different instantiations" to be sure, but that does not help a bit in understanding how biochemistry generates living systems. In short, we have the laws of biochemistry, and we can see living systems (cellular organisms), but we don't have a clue as to how you get from one to the other. Biochemistry, and physical law generally, provide constraints, and not open-ended possibilities.

> it all comes down to basic cause/effect, a long
> chain of dominoes being knocked over and
> collapsing one by one, and the arbitraging of
> local energy anomalies (in an overall zero-entropy
> field) to harness negentropy and thus temporarily
> overcome the limitations of the second law. ... i
> suppose you'd also want some method of encoding
> data to pass on to later iterations of the
> formula, to make the process increasingly more
> efficient. ... but there's all kinds of possible
> ways of embodying such a program

Are you saying that the laws of biochemistry operating on an environment are deterministic? If that is true then life would be inevitable, and its origin commonplace. This sounds like a theistic argument, such that God created the laws of chemistry in order to establish life. Also, although I do not understand your point in the rest of this paragraph, entropy is NOT a force, and there is no such thing as "negentropy" regardless of what creative, imaginative, "scientists" or philosophers want to argue.
>
> ultimately the question is why is there any
> perception of anything at all ... what additional
> useful purpose is served beyond mechanical
> replication

From an evolutionary, biological, standpoint there is no purpose to life.

The evidence does not point to viruses being the earliest forms of life. Viruses need hosts to replicate; they are parasitic on more advanced forms of life.

Remember that it only had to happen once. There may have been other sequences that we don't know about yet, but for our type of creature there only had to be one combination that worked.

Some life tips for consideration.

When professionals smarter than you or I have been working on a field of study for generations, the safe money is that they have not overlooked the obvious.

If you think you have obvious information to correct them with, you might want to review said information twenty or thirty times before publishing it.

And an observation: OP's obvious information would have flunked him out of a high school biology class.

Is it plausible? Theoretically.

“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.” (Einstein)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2020 08:42PM by caffiend.

"The one thing that distinguishes living things from non-living things is its ability to capture energy and convert it to heat. England argues that when exposed to an external source of energy, such as the sun, any group of molecules will restructure themselves to dissipate more and more energy."

I tend to follow Ilya Prigogine in this regard, viewing life as a near-equilibrium dissipative process.

That is, it operates very close to equilibrium, so that very tiny random perturbations in the system (e.g., molecular bonds breaking/reforming) can give just enough of a "jiggle" to the system to keep it going

The individual movements are, on the most basic level, random, but the nature of the system is that it is biased or skewed just the tiniest bit in favor of directionality rather than complete randomness. ... this provides the little bit of asymmetry, the symmetry breaking, to keep it going; a virtuous circle or positive feedback loop is created, and can go on indefinitely.

In complete and total equilibrium, order, or uniformity of energies, nothing exists because the energy cancels out ([+1]+{-1]=0); otoh, total disorder does not allow any structure to form at all; we owe our apparent existence to a tiny bit of chaos and disorder but not too much

Abiogenesis is the current best explanation.

Yes, self-organization of dissipative structures interchanging information between a (self-defined) self/environment boundary, and persisting for a greater or lesser period of time. I imagine the whole process could be written out in purely abstract, mathematical terms without reference to any specific physical instantiation of the concept.

A more interesting question is how the idea of memory or information evolves, and the concept of one iteration of a structure passing along data to the next iteration, and how this seems to speak to some sort of embryonic self-awareness of the system as a whole (in that it's incorporating a model or blueprint of its own parameters, miniaturized in code, into its structure for later use.)

Abiogenesis is the view that life arose by natural processes. (Rather than by an act of God, say) Currently it is not "the best explanation" but rather a reasonable scientific assumption (in fact natural processes is the assumption of all of science). That said, there is no satisfactory explanation of the origin of life, and all theories that have been offered as explanations are problematic in very fundamental ways. This is why the concepts of "emergence," "complexity," and "information," to name a few (none of which are mathematically grounded as physical, scientific mechanisms), are often invoked to boot-strap otherwise known and understood natural processes. These terms are offered in essence to take the place of the statement, "and then a miracle happens."

Now, someone might well argue that given the conundrum of science on the origin of life issue, a "supernatural" explanation that transcends science is required. Thus, a different kind of miracle is involved. (God of the gaps?) That is, of course, anti-science, but not necessarily false.

In short, one can pick their favored miracle to buttress origin of life positions, but what you cannot do is adopt the natural *assumption* of science and call it "the best explanation, when no plausible mechanism is offered within that framework. That tactic--when used as an argument against the religious explanation--is question begging.

In this case, science is hindered by not having the ancient evidence. The earth has re-written its geology for the most part since life began thus destroying what early evidence there was. And the best assumptions about what early life may have been would also be very difficult to find in fossil type of situations.

Science will likely have to wait until it can access early life forms elsewhere before we'll be able to claim knowledge in a scientific sense about how life may form, whether or not that is our own heritage.

dogbloggernli Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In this case, science is hindered by not having
> the ancient evidence. The earth has re-written its
> geology for the most part since life began thus
> destroying what early evidence there was. And the
> best assumptions about what early life may have
> been would also be very difficult to find in
> fossil type of situations.

One can always make the claim that one's theory is correct, and could be proven -- if only we had the ("ancient" or whatever type of evidence your like) evidence. You can also claim that there was such evidence at one time, but it was destroyed. (Or like the golden plates, taken back by the God of nature!)

Notwithstanding, one might speculate as to what such evidence would look like if it were found. What possible fossils, or other evidence, if found, would establish the origin of life issue? With evolution generally, we might find fossils representing the "missing links" as paleontologists have done to some extent. But with origin of life issues, the question is far more theoretical. We are not talking about the fossil record, we are talking about a mechanism, or story, of biochemistry, operating either deterministically or stochastically (by chance) to produce living cellular systems from non-living scratch.
>
> Science will likely have to wait until it can
> access early life forms elsewhere before we'll be
> able to claim knowledge in a scientific sense
> about how life may form, whether or not that is
> our own heritage.

Scientists have already found very early life forms, including fossils of microorganisms dating from 3.77 billion to 4.5 billion years ago; right up to the formation of the Earth. Yet, the mystery remains, in fact it is acerbated by such findings because here you have highly complex life existing arguably without the evolutionary time required to gradually produce it.

Who’s to say that our theories of the origin of life are more accurate than those of house cats or dust mites? Single-celled life arose on Earth less than a billion years after space dust coagulated to form a planet. That’s a lot of evolution in a very short time, unless life has done all of this before. Not just in this Universe, but in all Universes. Before the Big Bang, if there is a “before” in a cyclical Universe where the end and the beginning are the same, with each Big Bang another heartbeat of creation. Life has been around forever. It just takes time to establish a foothold in a new place, but that’s what life does. It finds a way.

"Currently it is not "the best explanation"" ... so tell us your best explanation.

"The chances of each of us coming into existence are infinitesimally small, and even though we shall all die some day, we should count ourselves fantastically lucky to get our decades in the sun." - Richard Dawkins

&

"The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice."- Richard Dawkins

Sir Richard Dawkins is brilliant!

I am always shocked to find people who claim that Richard Dawkins is an astute thinker, or otherwise compelling in his logic and reasoning; let alone generally "brilliant." Such accolades are mostly expressed by his "new atheist" colleagues, or by scientific neophytes who get hooked on his relentless anti-religion rhetoric, which happens to coincide with their own anti-religion views. I assure you that the scientific community--including within biology--does not generally share such a view of Dawkins. That should tell you something.

That said, I certainly invite you to express in more clear terms your enthusiasm bordering on worship of this prophet of atheism; hopefully with specific examples of what you consider to be his 'brilliant' thinking.

In the meantime, here is a response to the two soundbites you *do* offer:

> "The chances of each of us coming into existence
> are infinitesimally small, and even though we
> shall all die some day, we should count ourselves
> fantastically lucky to get our decades in the
> sun." - Richard Dawkins

In the first place, given the premise that we all just live and die, doesn't someone's "luckiness" in life depend upon the quality of life they experienced while existing? Someone who lived a life of constant pain, anguish, deprivation, and bitterness, might justifiably not feel all that lucky--unless it was meshed with some sense of religious hope, which Dawkins believes is nothing more than superstitious nonsense. In any event, hardly a 'brilliant' observation, much less sound advice about how one should feel about their own life.

> "The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing,
> some 10 billion years after the universe evolved
> out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering
> that I would be mad to attempt words to do it
> justice."- Richard Dawkins

Dawkins goes on to rightly confirm that evolution does not explain the origin of life. (Since evolution presupposes such life) Moreover, he conveniently fails to advise us that such origins are "so staggering" (as he admits) because there *is* no explanation for it. What is the difference between Dawkins' "lack of words" to describe the mysterious origin of life, and the theist's own lack of words to describe the mystery of God? Yet, all of Dawkins' rhetoric depends upon the assumption that his preferred form of mystery is somehow more legitimate as a worldview than the worldview of theists, where life, consciousness, human free will, morality, etc. are part of a more expansive reality. Call it what you want, but a mystery is still a mystery whether couched in scientific or religious jargon,

I have read a hell-of-a-lot of science, including evolutionary biology, and Richard Dawkins is as far from "brilliant" as almost anyone I can imagine with any stature or notoriety. What you *can* say about Dawkins is that he was and is an effective champion of hardcore, strict, Neo-Darwinism. Unfortunately, Neo-Darwinism has turned out to be highly suspect as an explanation of biological complexity, and offers no explanation of the origin of life.

You are just being selfish.

G. Salviati are you on an intellectual binge? Trying to lock horns to show off your smarts to win your procreational harem?

I am just messing with you. I love a good debate.

"In the first place, given the premise that we all just live and die, doesn't someone's "luckiness" in life depend upon the quality of life they experienced while existing? Someone who lived a life of constant pain, anguish, deprivation, and bitterness, might justifiably not feel all that lucky--unless it was meshed with some sense of religious hope, which Dawkins believes is nothing more than superstitious nonsense. In any event, hardly a 'brilliant' observation, much less sound advice about how one should feel about their own life."

Given the context of where Richard provided this quote, he was trying to answer theist rebuttals that not believing in a god or an afterlife is some how depressing or depriving. None-the-less, one born into continual horrible pain and treatment may not agree with this statement, not that I know of anyone without any small moment of joy with a sufficient life span of intelligence/consciousness to recognize bitter from sweet experiences. Do you?

"Dawkins goes on to rightly confirm that evolution does not explain the origin of life. (Since evolution presupposes such life) Moreover, he conveniently fails to advise us that such origins are "so staggering" (as he admits) because there *is* no explanation for it. What is the difference between Dawkins' "lack of words" to describe the mysterious origin of life, and the theist's own lack of words to describe the mystery of God? Yet, all of Dawkins' rhetoric depends upon the assumption that his preferred form of mystery is somehow more legitimate as a worldview than the worldview of theists, where life, consciousness, human free will, morality, etc. are part of a more expansive reality. Call it what you want, but a mystery is still a mystery whether couched in scientific or religious jargon,"

Again, another quote that requires one to understand the context of what lead to it, but I find it profound considering he doesn't try to use evolution to explain the origins of life nor does say it cannot. He simply is making a point of the enormous journey from 10 billion years ago to this moment in time, with all of the attrition of life in between each single event no matter how tiny it was, you sit in front of your screen reading these words right here right now. Yes, I would say it is staggering. Whereas, the theist just says in six days the world was created, the 7th God rests, and if you ask who created god or where did it all begin, "it doesn't matter only that you focus on your time here to earn your keep there".

I am not lamb I will not follow the herd of sheep like that.

Finally, in response to you being shocked by me referring to Richards as an astute thinker or brilliant...

What is intelligence, how is it defined and measured? What tool out there measures it with perfect validity and reliability? Can the Scientific Method in and of itself measure IQ and provide 100% validity and reliability? If you know anything about Science and the Scientific Method, it is flawed by the very fact that it seeks to disprove but can never arrive at 100% disproven. Don't get me wrong, I believe in science and the method, but I recognize it's inherent dilemma.

In some ways I am saying that intelligence is relative like beauty, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Once again, this all goes back to context. Compare Sir Richard to Stephen Hawking who made very similar statements as Sir Richard. He said, "I am not afraid of death, but I am not in a hurry to die". He also compared death to a computer shutting off. At any rate, when I look at "Astute Thinkers" or the most brilliant minds of all time, there is always something that supersedes that mind and expands on that idea or takes that knowledge to a newer high. Think of those today versus all of those who have died many years ago.

When I say Sir Richard Dawkins is brilliant, it is like me observing a sunset with you and I make that statement that it is beautiful. But you retort me and say, there are much more beautiful sunsets than this one.

onthedownlow Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "In the first place, given the premise that we all
> just live and die, doesn't someone's "luckiness"
> in life depend upon the quality of life they
> experienced while existing? Someone who lived a
> life of constant pain, anguish, deprivation, and
> bitterness, might justifiably not feel all that
> lucky--unless it was meshed with some sense of
> religious hope, which Dawkins believes is nothing
> more than superstitious nonsense. In any event,
> hardly a 'brilliant' observation, much less sound
> advice about how one should feel about their own
> life."
>
> Given the context of where Richard provided this
> quote, he was trying to answer theist rebuttals
> that not believing in a god or an afterlife is
> some how depressing or depriving. None-the-less,
> one born into continual horrible pain and
> treatment may not agree with this statement, not
> that I know of anyone without any small moment of
> joy with a sufficient life span of
> intelligence/consciousness to recognize bitter
> from sweet experiences. Do you?

Here is the Dawkins quote for reference:

> "The chances of each of us coming into existence
> are infinitesimally small, and even though we
> shall all die some day, we should count ourselves
> fantastically lucky to get our decades in the
> sun." - Richard Dawkins

The problem I have is the sweeping shallowness of Dawkins' comment. The meaning of life is reduced to contingency and luck, with the implication (as you yourself acknowledged) that "luck" was a product solely of one's calculus of happiness over a lifetime.("decades in the sun") There is no place in Dawkins' worldview--other than as an inconsistent rhetorical acknowledgement as necessary to soften his otherwise hardcore materialist worldview--for a depth of meaning provided by one's free choices, one's moral responses to life, or, God forbid, a transcendent reality of any kind. Contingency, and death is all Dawkins' has to offer. Yet, because that provides most of us with a modicum of happiness over the course of a lifetime, we should be satisfied; and content to reduce religious faith to nonsense.
_________________________________________________

> "Dawkins goes on to rightly confirm that evolution
> does not explain the origin of life. (Since
> evolution presupposes such life) Moreover, he
> conveniently fails to advise us that such origins
> are "so staggering" (as he admits) because there
> *is* no explanation for it. What is the difference
> between Dawkins' "lack of words" to describe the
> mysterious origin of life, and the theist's own
> lack of words to describe the mystery of God? Yet,
> all of Dawkins' rhetoric depends upon the
> assumption that his preferred form of mystery is
> somehow more legitimate as a worldview than the
> worldview of theists, where life, consciousness,
> human free will, morality, etc. are part of a more
> expansive reality. Call it what you want, but a
> mystery is still a mystery whether couched in
> scientific or religious jargon,"
>
> Again, another quote that requires one to
> understand the context of what lead to it, but I
> find it profound considering he doesn't try to use
> evolution to explain the origins of life nor does
> say it cannot.

Your bar for "profound" strikes me as exceedingly low! Moreover, Dawkins' admits that evolution cannot explain the origin of life, which he acknowledges is a mystery. I find it quite un-profound that he does not substantively discuss this issue--even though all of his arguments that lean on evolution as a substitute for theism depend upon it. You cannot "Climb Mount Improbable" without getting from the molecules of bio-chemistry to a living cell. So much for his book of the same name.
_________________________________________

> He simply is making a point of the
> enormous journey from 10 billion years ago to this
> moment in time, with all of the attrition of life
> in between each single event no matter how tiny it
> was, you sit in front of your screen reading these
> words right here right now. Yes, I would say it
> is staggering.

I agree with this idea of the majesty of life. And I also agree with Dawkins' view that evolution (small "e") played an essential part in biological complexity--including that of human beings. I just don't think this is the whole story. Why?
Because there is just too much about life, consciousness, and human cognition, that this simplistic picture cannot explain.
_________________________________________

> Whereas, the theist just says in
> six days the world was created, the 7th God rests,
> and if you ask who created god or where did it all
> begin, "it doesn't matter only that you focus on
> your time here to earn your keep there".

Your understanding of "theism" is unbelievably narrow--in fact absurd. Just as Dawkins' understanding of theism is. At least you did not write a book about it. Hopefully?

___________________________________________

> I am not lamb I will not follow the herd of sheep
> like that.

Don't kid yourself. There is also a herd of sheep following Dawkins and the other outspoken "New-atheists." The difference is that theists for the most part understand the metaphor, often rejecting it; whereas most atheists are under the "Delusion" of their own, but don't realize it.
___________________________________________

> Finally, in response to you being shocked by me
> referring to Richards as an astute thinker or
> brilliant...
>
> What is intelligence, how is it defined and
> measured? What tool out there measures it with
> perfect validity and reliability?

> Can the Scientific Method in and of itself measure IQ and
> provide 100% validity and reliability? If you
> know anything about Science and the Scientific
> Method, it is flawed by the very fact that it
> seeks to disprove but can never arrive at 100%
> disproven. Don't get me wrong, I believe in
> science and the method, but I recognize it's
> inherent dilemma.

Well, it was you that used the word. Presumably, the word "brilliant" when applied to some scholar is intended to set them apart from others who are less intellectually gifted. So, please do not back-peddle by trying to undermine the very word you used.
___________________________________________

> When I say Sir Richard Dawkins is brilliant, it is
> like me observing a sunset with you and I make
> that statement that it is beautiful. But you
> retort me and say, there are much more beautiful
> sunsets than this one.

Well, no. If a sunset involves intellectual insight and integrity, it is not that there are more beautiful sunsets than Dawkins, it is that he is not a sunset at all. But rather, a dark cloud that is distorting it, and preventing others from appreciating its beauty. And this distortion has nothing really to do with religion.

How its not obvious that viruses are not technically considered "life", but they carry DNA and RNA, the blueprint for life.
Or that they evolved from more complex (theoretically extinct) Last Common Ancestor, which they share, from about 3 billion years ago.
Meaning whatever that LCA was, is the last ancestor of all life, which found an existential foothold here on Earth 3 billion years ago.
That could have been an alien life form that got here via a frozen ocean comet that landed on a boiling hot earth, cooled it down and out swam all kinds of extremophiles, like water bears, primordial aliens, which then adapted their DNA to life on Earth, and perhaps the same thing happened on othere earth like goldilocks planets, warm enough to melt ice but not too hot to scorch it either. 25% of the DNA of Waterbears is derived from their environment. More than any other species.


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/water-bears-tardigrades-master-dna-thieves-animal-world-180957371/

I think it might be possible that viruses could have been the seeds of life and they since they're not alive, they can survive on ice indefinitely.

Something like a cross between a virus and a bacteria existed before all of us and could have been our creator. Not God, but the primordial LCA.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/what-came-first-cells-or-viruses/#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20his%20family%20tree,first%20emerged%20on%20the%20planet.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2020 06:03PM by schrodingerscat.

Which came first? You are betting on eggs.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Which came first? You are betting on eggs.

I am betting on DNA, the blueprint for life, which is the most abundant biological agent on the planet, and could be the precursor for life.

You lose.

Polypeptides are a better bet.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26876/

Isn't Dawkins admitting he doesn't have a clue about angiogenesis and hence anything much to do with a much larger grand scheme of things? Funny he considers himself almost an authoritarian on the subject matter collecting money and grants from anyone who might pay. Is this the matter of his heritage?

"The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice."- Richard Dawkins

Sir Richard Dawkins is brilliant!"

Huntedas Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

“Isn't Dawkins admitting he doesn't have a clue about abiogenesis and hence anything much to do with a much larger grand scheme of things?”

==It’s ok to admit that you have a lack of knowledge. In fact, all humans lack that knowledge. The solution is using the scientific method. Maybe we’ll find the answer one day, maybe we won’t.

“Funny he considers himself almost an authoritarian on the subject matter”

==He doesn’t consider himself an authoritarian on the subject.
He talks about the subject. He talks about science in general and talks about religion/supersition.
Science and religion/supersition are in competition with each other just like Pepsi and Coca-Cola are in competition. Different people have different needs. Some will take the Pepsi bottle, some will take the Coca-Cola bottle.

It used to be that religion/supersition had corned the market. It is losing grounds to science. When was the last time that a scientific explanation was replaced with religion/supersition?

Religion such as christianity is ridiculous. They advertise space heaven as some kind of wonderland but nobody goes there willingly. They prefer to go to Hawaii or Cuba. Are those places better than space heaven?

~~~~iceman9090

first I went to walmart and bought some supplies
then I mixed y with z added some xminor threw in a little liquid steel stirred it all up poured it into a mold and ZAPPO life was there
So say I to ye of little faith



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/2020 12:30PM by thedesertrat1.

Visitors from another dimension flushed their Winnabago's holding tank, an event we call The Big Bang, and it will expand until it circles back on itself and turns into a compaction event, resulting in a Singularity so BIG...

How big?

Bigger than an infinite number of infinities, that's how big!!

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

“Seems like they're overlooking the obvious.
Viruses have RNA and DNA in them, which are self replicating.”

==Viruses have RNA and a large number of proteins that stick to it. Some also have lipids stuck on them.
Very few of them are based on DNA.
There are also viroids which don’t have a protein and/or lipid coat.

“There are creationist arguments such as, if I put all the parts of a watch in a big vat and keep stirring it, a functioning watch is not going to magically form inside the vat.”

==There is quite a big difference between a watch and an enormously huge set of molecules.
Stirring it? If you need to stir it, this gives you a clue that the analogy doesn’t work.
How exactly is a screw going to screw itself into a hole? How is this watch none sense an analogy of the molecular world?

“The most important component may have been lipids which make up the cell walls because without a way to encapsulate certain elements, the various chemicals could not come together to potentially interact.”

==I disagree. The most important is to have an efficient replicator molecule. The most efficient replicator breaks down others and forms copies of itself quickly. Having cell walls is possibly the next stage.

“And some cite an estimate by scientists Hoyle and Wickramasinghe showing that the probability of all the chemicals in a simple bacterium arising on their own by chance, is one in ten to the 40,000th power.”

==I have seen it. They calculate what the chances are for a long protein chain to form. Maybe 500 units long. Since there are 26 amino acids, it comes out to 26^500 and then convert that to a 10^something. That something is going to be a very large number, maybe 40,000.
They don’t understand evolutionary processes. Evolutionary processes do a lot of culling.
Think of it as a bush growing. It launches branches in every direction which spawn more branches.
You will end up with a lot of leaves.
Now build a wall that blocks one side of the bush. A whole lot of branches won’t be launched,

What this means is that the replicator molecule would have to be short. Possibly 20 or 30 or 50 units long RNA. Not something that is 30,000 units long.

“Jeremy England argues that when exposed to an external source of energy, such as the sun, any group of molecules will restructure themselves to dissipate more and more energy.”

==I’m not sure what he means.
For example, if you input heat to a sample of N2O4, some will have enough energy to break into two NO2 molecules. Heat is not dissipated. It is stored in the NO2 molecules. This reaction is reversible. Cooling it converts the NO2 to N2O4.

~~~~iceman9090

I know most viruses have RNA, not DNA.
But, despite being not alive, somehow they
A. Can distinguish a certain bacteria cell from all the other cells.
B. Attach to the host bacteria.
C. Inject their single strand of RNA into the host bacteria cell
D. cut the cell's double helix of DNA in half
E. Attach their single helix to the half of a DNA strand, to create a new DNA strand with completely different instructions to the cell, effectively reprograming it from a self replicating cell, to a factory for creating 100 copies of the virus in 24 hours, at which time the new viruses, excrete an enzyme that destroys the lipid membrane of the cell and causes it to explode, scattering the new viruses inside the larger environment.

That's pretty highly sophisticated for something that's not even alive, that's not even a cell. It does all of this with motor proteins. Little tiny protein motors that are present in every cell in your body, that work in conjunction with one another to form a DNA replicating/splitting factory inside of every cell in your body and inside of viruses.

So my point is, if these little motor proteins are capable of working together to do genetic surgery on cells, maybe those same type of motor proteins existed before viruses and they are present wherever there is DNA or RNA present and somehow they know how to do genetic surgery on DNA with RNA and tell it how to combine to create certain other proteins and carbon based life forms. So maybe what we call 'god' or the 'creator' is not an invisible Santa for adults, it could be something we can't even see with our most powerful microscopes, the motor proteins that are responsible for repairing, splitting and duplicating our DNA, which are present in every cell and even in pre-cells, in viruses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8&feature=emb_logo

Every day 50 Billion of your cells die.
And 50 Billion are replicated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_tYrnv_o6A



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2020 04:46PM by schrodingerscat.