₦airaland Forum

Uyi Iredia: The abiogenesis argument posed by plaetton fails woefully. Thge compounds Oparin discovered are dubbed coacervates and the proteinous compunds are cross-linked in such a way to make them of no use. In his opus 'Signature In The Cell' which I'm now reading (and will advice anyone seeking to know in detail problems regarding abiogenesis to buy or download) Stephen Meyer, a geoscientist and a PHD holder in the history and philosophy of science shatters arguments for abiogenesis. Of course, our materialist friend are prone to play deaf but I'll list 3 important points right of Meyer's 2010 book. Plaetton apparently knows little about what he preaches because RNA world (which incorporates gene first and metabolim first models) is the predominent model being worked on especially by the likes of Jack Szostak, Oparin's works was done decades ago and has been debunked by scientists including other evolutionists, same for Miller who didn't accirately reproduce early earth atmosphere (which contains according to Wikipedia 60% hydrogen, 20% oxygen, 10% carbon dioxide and 7% Hydrogen sulfide. Not to mention that early earth was supposedly very radioactive and open to much UV radiation). The points against RNA world are as follows:

* RNA building blocks are hard to synthesize and easy to destroy. Case in point: cytosine and uracil deaminate (lose essential parts of the chemical structure by NH2 removal) with half-lives of 19 days and 1e2 years respectively. RNA chains in uncontrolled reactions can and tend to cross-link to form inert substances.
* Ribosomes are poor substitutes for proteins. Case in point: proteins are used to make DNA and to escape this RNA is proposed as first arising since it does act like proteins. However, it is way to inefficient since it lacks multiple bonding sites to catalze multi-step reactions needed in a cell.
* An RNA-based translation and coding system is implausible. Case in point: Anyone with good genetic basis knows in most cases cellular reaction proceeds from DNA to RNA to protein. Aminoacylation binds RNA to amino acids. It involves 2 reactions which proteins help catalyze. Riboszymes (RNA's which can perform as enzymes) are unsuitable for such reactions. In fact, the likes of Szostak engineer ribosomes to do reactions they don't normally do.

I think the detailed points above should shatter plaetton's pathetically facile and asinine take on it. The same goes for otherwise eminent scientists. What's even most glaring is that most abiogenesis experiments (right from Miller's) involve artificial conditions and intelligent input. Miller intervened in his experiment to stop cross_reaction of amino acids, what in Nature can do that AS AT WHEN required, Miller used a trap which was collected amino residues, where in Nature can such a trap, sufficiently close to where a Miller type reaction can occur, be found; finally Miller's fails because it is acknowledged by geologists (from oxidation reaction marks evident in early rocks) that oxygen was available in early earth, I wonder if a chemist would dare put in even 5% oxygen in Miller's reaction and actually presnt wondrous findings.

^^^^ Sadly, he is himself very well aware of the terrible problems with abiogenesis and has said so, but curiously sits around holding it up as that which answers the evident questions!

Then, he looks around and says he is laughing at others, really funny Guy, Plaetton. I wonder who you are laughing at or with. The laugh's all on the fairy tale answers and outright falsehoods you have been referring to!

You referred to a write up which said and I quote verbatim - "These compounds would subsequently self-assemble into increasingly complex molecules such as proteins. These, in turn, would organize themselves into living cells."

You then fold your arms and declare "So no God needed!" - - - when the bold above in that statement is an outright falsehood because it has never been observed anywhere, no experiment has shown this, nothing whatsoever to suggest that could ever happen. And you then look around and say that other people are believing in fairy tales!

It would be hilarious if it were not so delusional and perverse!

^^^ Se.xuality could not be the result of evolution. Evolution does not work in such a way as to produce the se.xes at all in the first place. If you cannot get that, then I can't help you.

I have tried, with all the posers, to show you that evolution alone cannot account for things.

I don't know why you keep saying my opening this thread was meant to steal a march on you. I have explained that already.

So far so good, there is nothing tangible you have been able to say.

Daz all.

Alfa Seltzer: Yes, they would: adaptation to environmental changes.

And as far as we know, unicellular organisms, through all environmental changes, remain the most successful organisms. As such, there is still no discernable evolutionary impetus there.

Secondly, can you name an environmental change which will cause an adaptation that makes multi cellular organisms evolve from unicellular organisms - and how such a change would help the arising multi cellular organism in relation to that environmental change?

Alfa Seltzer: @ deepsight, so you think consciousness defines life then? That until these chemical elements gain consciousness, they cannot be considered to be alive? Is that what you are saying?

Is water a living thing? Does it have Mr. NIGER D?

plaetton: Why don't you address the question of sexual reproduction according to your own version of evolution. Afterall, you do ACCEPT evolution as a fact, don't you?

And what if I am unable to address sexual reproduction to suit you, does that mean that ...?

You guys are deaf and dumb.
No idea of science is afraid to be wrong and no person of science is afraid to say I dont know, or I can't explain.
Asking how and why organisms become sexual or sexually reproductive is not any different as asking why our star is yellow rather than white or red, or any other colour, or why our earth has one moon instead of ten.
One needs to know just how every atom in the universe behaves or behaved in the past to know how everything little detail came to be.
That's why I think your questions are infantile. I am not kidding.
If we dont know precisely when and how the first life in the universe began, then for you that means ....?
If we dont know why organisms decided to have sex instead of just splitting into two, so for you that means....?

You appear as some who is desperately looking for a straw to clutch on to save your worldview and identity.
Its like someone earlier trying to imply that if I cannot explain speaking in tongues, then I have to agree that god must exist.

The superiority of scientific reasoning rests on the fact that we can use what we know to speculate on what we may not be able to experimentally prove. For example,we understand Newtonian Physics, we can calculate the mass and gravitational force of a distant planet without having to go there to measure it.
And also, we are open to make corrections when we have better information.

This habit of seeking absolute magical answers is very childish and shows a lack of understanding of how basic science works.
Only an ignorant person would say that if science or a scientific theory cannot show this or that, then it must be the magic of an invisible god.
This precisely why god keeps doing the disappearing act each time science makes a new discovery.

Your positions, which you are still skirting around, are based on nothing that is observable, measurable or even mathematically deduceable. It is running on pure gas of fantasy.
" I believe that there must be a hidden force, therefore it is fact"
I really dont understand how you can make s much noise based on just your inner feeling.

At least make an attempt to just show how the almighty invisible omniness interfaces and directs the course of evolution.

If you can't , then BE SILENT!

This is a completely vacant post which says nothing and addresses nothing.

You are unable to address the simple posers and you wind up writing irrelevant epistles about what science is and other completely empty rhetoric.

You have said one big fat nothing.

It is sad that you are so unable to address even the simple poser on the evolutionary explanation for se.xuality. That poser ALONE shows up everything wrong with the idea of evolution as conceived by people like you. That poser alone, completely destroys everything you believe and claim in that regard.

Rather than man up, you are busy writing irrelevancies, while sitting pompously on a high horse of ignorance, laughing at others as Santa Clausists.

And worse, you throw up shocking falsehoods far worse than any religious fairy tales - as I noted here -

plaetton: Abiogenesis attempts to account for the emergence of life from simple organic molecules.


Abiogenesis – A brief history Even though Darwin himself focused on the origin of species, some scientists have tried to apply the concept of evolution to the first life to form the concept of abiogenesis. In 1924, Russian biochemist Alexander Oparin proposed that living cells arose gradually from nonliving matter through a sequence of chemical reactions. According to Oparin, gases present in the atmosphere of primitive earth, when induced by lightening or other sources of energy, would react to form simple organic compounds. These compounds would subsequently self-assemble into increasingly complex molecules such as proteins. [size=16pt]These, in turn, would organize themselves into living cells.[/size] In 1953, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey tested Oparin’s hypothesis by conducting an experiment that attempted to simulate the atmospheric conditions of primitive earth. In their experiment, water boiled into vapor at the bottom of a flask and then passed through an apparatus, combining with ammonia, methane, and hydrogen. They then subjected the resulting mixture to a 50,000-volt-spark before cooling and collecting it in a trap at the bottom of the apparatus. When Miller and Urey examined the resulting tar-like substance, they found a collection of amino acids, the building blocks of life. - See more at: http://www.allaboutscience.org/abiogenesis.htm#sthash.SQtMSzwJ.dpuf

Now although the theory of abiogenesis still has many problems and many questions to sort out, it lays the basic scientific idea of how simple living cells may have emerged from chemical reactions billions of years ago.
Infact, for all we know, such a process may have initially taken place in another galaxy several billions years further down the road,and perhaps transported to earth by meteorites or crashing comets.

Now, It is entirely up to you whether you accept or reject it.

Now , on the second issue of consciousness, again scientific thinking is now looking at the possibility that it arises as a result of quantum mechanical processes in the brain cells. In other words, it is possibly a biochemical function that occurs when the conditions are right , and not a divine attribute.
Again, it's either you keep an open mind or you keep your mind closed.

Deep Sight:

You are EXCEEDINGLY FUNNY!

And you dare go about saying this or that is "laughable" is a "fairy-tale" laughing at sky daddies and Santa Claus and all that! You are FAR worse! You make astonishing logical leaps and you believe in pure fantasy and even outright falsehood, and you dare pass it off as science or logic!

VERY SIMPLY:

ARE AMINO ACIDS LIVING THINGS?

Look at the bold in your quote above. Is there any experiment that has EVER shown that? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Just one? Any at all? ? ? ? ? ? ?

You refer to an experiment producing amino acids said to be the building blocks of life. You could just as well refer to an experiment producing star dust, as we are made of star dust, no? You could also refer me to an experiment producing water, as we are 70 per cent water, no? Can we not show an experiment combining Hydrogen and Oxygen to produce water? Is water not cardinal to life? Does such an experiment therefore disclose emergent life?

In fact look here, about your Amino Acids -

Amino acids (/əˈmiːnoʊ/, /əˈmaɪnoʊ/, or /ˈæmɪnoʊ/) are biologically important organic compounds made from amine (-NH2) and carboxylic acid (-COOH) functional groups, along with a side-chain specific to each amino acid. The key elements of an amino acid are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, though other elements are found in the side-chains of certain amino acids. About 500 amino acids are known[1] and can be classified in many ways. Structurally they can be classified according to the functional groups' locations as alpha- (α-), beta- (β-), gamma- (γ-) or delta- (δ-) amino acids; other categories relate to polarity, pH level, and side chain group type (aliphatic, acyclic, aromatic, containing hydroxyl or sulfur, etc.) In the form of proteins, amino acids comprise the second largest component [size=16pt](after water)[/size] of human muscles, cells and other tissues.[2] Outside proteins, amino acids perform critical roles in processes such as neurotransmitter transport and biosynthesis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acids

Just look at the bold!

Note that it says "the second largest component AFTER WATER!"

So in fact, it is apt to look at water as the most important component - and as such, an experiment producing water should be even more important than your experiment producing amino acids!

Is water a living thing. Does an experiment producing water therefore show emergent Life? Are Amino acids living things. Does an experiment producing Amino Acids therefore show emergent Life?

If an experiment produces the matter on which living things dwell, has such an experiment shown the emergence of life? Are amino acids living things? Has any experiment demonstrated the bold in your post above?

The truth is, the bold in your post above is a bare faced LIE: fantasy and imagination at work. It is a lie. It has not been shown to happen in ANY experiment anywhere ever, and you are yet happy to interpolate it to plug a gaping hole, a massive gap, in your worldview.

How dare you sound so presumptuous and then go ahead to cite something such as that bare faced LIE? Which experiment has ever shown that to happen anywhere? Such components forming living cells as said in the bold of yours? Just which? Kindly show me, good sir!

You see, we have seen this over and over. The gloating atheist intoxicated with the aroma of pseudo scientific philosophy such that he imagines himself reasoning at some higher level than the regular theist. It ALWAYS emerges that you fellows do not even have a clue of what you seek to discuss!

If you are so ready to gulp down such unsubstantiated claims, what makes you any different from the Santa Claus gang who you deride?

The bold in your post is a MOST disgraceful assumption built on nothing a fantastic leap of fantasy, never experimented, and never observed to occur anywhere at any time. It is far worse that Santa Claus!

And yet you smugly advance it? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

To which of course you said nothing!

plaetton: C'mon Deepsight,
I am surprised that you would even pay attention to , let alone cheer this breed of mental lilliputian.

Friend, you are entitled to your opinion. He made very sound and lucid points which I am sure you would see if only you took off the blinkers of dogma and bias. I say to you that it is YOU who is desperately trying to hold on to a worldview.

These points of his are VERY apt:

loveroftruth: But for this me that can lose life when all the amino acid and water is still in me, i definitely know you are saying irrelent things as far this subject is concern.

loveroftruth: If not, then note that matter will remain matter nomatter how you organised them, it will not, never gain consciousness.

Not the best written English, but excellent points.

loveroftruth: See who is talking, the one that does not know what life/consciousness is.

The one that will sell "amino acid is alive/have consciousness over time" to his dummies.

Now it is propaganda that he has resorted to.

Your lot that dont know how to think properly except copy and pest should learn how to keep quite when critical thinking is involved.

Oh, your TYPE can come when cursing competition is open.

But for this me that can lose life when all the amino acid and water is still in me, i definitely know you are saying irrelent things as far this subject is concern.

Go and sleep mr man.

GBAM! Simple. Tell them!

Alfa Seltzer: Deep sight, I think you are confusing evolution with "being succesful" or "being better than before". No. Evolution is NOT progression. It is just change. A continuous change. It is a change to adapt to the environment at a given moment. You may not agree, but right now, you are evolving. Every living thing is evolving at their own pace. Some end up worse than previously. Others adapt better. That's life. It's not a static.

I have no issues with this, I know and recognize this. What I state is that on the bare face of evolution, already successful unicellular organisms would have had no evolutionary impetus to develop into different species.

wiegraf: That's silly

Nope: when the question is the change, mutation and survival of species, then it is spot on. You cannot have such a successful species develop gradually into a form that renders its species less successful. That would be an evolutionary absurdity: and this is what has happened with development from unicellular life to advanced multi-cellular life. There would have to be an X factor that compels and even necessitates such a development or progression.

wiegraf: @sight

Still waiting for your definition of 'more' successful boss. Please, do you mean to imply apex predators, which usually have less numbers than their prey and indeed biomass, are 'less' successful. Perhaps you have some special insights to counter my piffle?

Sustained numerical success.

plaetton: @Deepsight
If the unseen guiding hand of evolution is itself guided by the same biological, chemical and physical logic as evolution, then of what necessity is it ? Is it not redundant?

The being is actually just that: the logic itself. The sum of self existent logic. The sum of self existent laws.

Why does the univelse need a being guided by logic to guide the logical flow of universal evolution?
And by the way, it the being is guided entirely by logic, does it not mean that being in question neither has a will nor ultimate purpose. The being can hardly be said to be conscious let alone self-aware.

I hope you see how your logic is found to be wanting.

Being the sum of self existent logic could very well exclude a will, because all that exists already IS, eternally. That, however, does not exclude a purpose of BEING or self awareness.

I do not know if God is self aware. That question is too transcendent to be addressed or even contemplated by any human being.

wiegraf: Really? Dohohohohohoho

And this is the sort of response from Plaetton and yourself throughout this thread to very simple questions. Handwaves and laughs.

You cannot answer yes or no if creatures ever evolve into less successful species.

And you expect to be taken seriously when you yawn evolution in your discussions.

Pity.

plaetton: @Deepsight.
Am not one to hurl insults just for the sake of doing so.
Whether thesis or deist, I guess that when your sky daddy us threatened, you all behave much in the same combative and irrational manner.

This discussion has certainly brought you down from your olympian heights.

I know that the practice of law requires certain skills of cunningness, evasion and obfuscation of facts with words. But those skills are not required in honest discussions among friends.
You are puttiby your legal skills to good use by ignoring relevant points, by refusing to elaborate on your version of evolution, and by running all over the place throwing fanciful words.
I do not believe that you are ignorant of salient points raised by myself and others on the issue of amino acids. No. I think you are just pretending.

I am not pretending about anything whatsoever. You are failing to address the simple and clear posers and most of your responses have been nothing more than a handwave and an attempt to laugh and scoff.

Address for me the question of the evolutionary explanation for se.xuality and se.xual reproduction.

wiegraf: You can start, as you've been trying to, with giving us a description of this 'less successful'. You say numbers? By that simplistic definition, which clearly matters not to nature mind you, homo sapiens is one of the less successful species around (ah, but that's why we need GOD!!?).

You can pretend you missed the part where I said being successful is all that's required, not 'more' or 'less' successful. Good enough to survive is all, simple. Nature will continue to throw dice, no 'will' or 'impetus' needed, sorry.

However, do they get worse at particular tasks? I think penguins are a lot worse at flying than their ancestors, yes? And flight would certainly aid their chances in various scenarios, no? So why did they loose the ability? Do species become extinct? I believe quite a few do, for a variety of reasons, while other 'lucky' ones claw on through time. Do they're populations wane? Rather frequently, I believe.

Piffle. Empty waffle.

Do successful species evolve into less successful species.

Simple question.

Stop hiding, running and obfuscating. That only shows that you know the question has you undone. Your responses are wearisomely unintelligent.

Now to the rest of your very poor attempt at addressing the posers.

plaetton: 1. The theory of evolution cannot address whence the singularity derives from or why it exists at all because no one knows or presumes to know.

The Theory of the Bi Ba.ng, you mean.

And yes, this answer shows, that you cannot claim that the said theory explains our origin, since, as you say, no one knows or presumes to know.

No need to fill in the gap just for the sake of filling in the gaps.

I say exactly the same thing back to you.

Same is often put to you about your invisible conscious being. From whence does it derive and why does it need to exists in the first place?

O it derives from logical necessity:

1. The universe had a beginning
2. Everything that has a beginning has a cause
3. Nothing finite can be its own cause
4. As such it had an external cause or trigger - this grounds transcendence.
5. As such it could not itself be matter - this grounds immateriality.

Whatever can be true for the invisible omni omni omniness can also be true for the singularity of scientific thinking.

No, matter being mutable cannot be self existent.

2. Again, no one knows for sure, but the right questions are being asked , and some day, we might arrive at answers.
So what?

So your explanation is not an explanation. Simple.

Am sorry, but asking atheists why an event such as the big occurred in the first place is well below your league. These are the kind of questions one expects from curious little children, not informed adults.

This has to be the funniest remark I have ever heard on this forum. For goodness sake, you just wrote above that "we don't know" and you do not presume to know. Then you swing about and say that an "informed adult" cannot ask this question, and that it is for children!

Boy o boy, what wrong with you today?

3. I am not aware of any proponent of the BB theory saying that space began to exist at any certain point.o

That is what they say: go and read around you will see it stated everywhere: that space and time began to exist and expand from the point of the singularity at the Big Bang. Also your homey on this board, thehomer, says this.

https://www.nairaland.com/577313/thehomer-now-lets-discuss-big

I dont know where you got that from and why you think it is of any relevance in this discussion.

It is of every relevance because it discloses an existence outside this universe.

1. Aboigenesis accounts, in broadest form, for what may have been the first processes that produced the first living form.

No it does not: and this is exactly why you have deployed careful and hesistant language here.

The core point remains: you cannot smirk and smugly say evolution accounts for consciousness, when in fact, it does not even explain how life arose.

The rest of your ramblings are meaningless.

Escapism.

2. Again, we have a general idea of how the first life may have begun.

You do not: and that again is why you speak hesitantly.

It also could have begun in similar or different processes in a far away galaxy billions and billions of years ago.

Idle speculation.

If you know the exact origin of life, the human race is very eager to hear it. But no fairy tales please.

And yet YOU are permitted to tell fairy tales like the one you did up there about formation of cells?

Did I hear you say mere matter?

Yes because matter is not alive.

mere matter as opposed to what else? Is there anything else in the universe? Is everything in the universe not made of this "mere matter"?
Pray tell, what do you know that is comparable in any way to "mere matter?
Am sensing complex ignorance on display here.

And I AM sensing massive delusion at play here. For you are saying that a rock if left alone somewhere in the universe, given sufficient time, may just produce a human being.

4. If an organic molecule can self-replicate and then begin to store and catalogue it's replicating data on another molecule, believe me, anything is very possible over billions of years.

He glibly says, glossing over the giant question of what would induce such self replication at all. For why and for what. For magic, abi? And yet you scoff at Santa Claus.

If you can be here today, unguided, writing for strangers in an online forum, something that your parents never ever envisage on the day your were born, then any complex arrangement of form and function is possible over any given length of time.
I hope you get the gist.

I am not unguided.

Infact, the brain has only evolved to use just 10% of our mental capacity.

You ignorantly subscribe to this old urban legend and yet you lament the ignorance of others?

Please get online and start reading on this myth.

Again, when man achieved the threshold of consciousness,what I assume to be a quantum mechanical process, My own notion is that the brain gained access to other spheres of energy beyond it's immediate environment , or in other dimensions. This called quantum entanglement.

Circular reasoning. This is like saying a car moves because of the sum of its parts. And then saying that the purpose of movement is the sum of the cars parts. Thoroughly illogical, but it appears it may take you a few years to get this one.

If am correct, then higher reasoning, music and other abstract things would not be a surprising thing.

If you are correct, you accede to the existence of higher realms of existence, and thereby insinuate the existence of God.

As for the rest of your posers, they are not really posers per se. They are just questions that anyone who has read or studied a little bit of evolutionary science should easily deal with.
I see nothing that particularly stands out that needs any detailed explanation that a book in a public library cannot address.

Waffle. Cowardice. Raw undiluted escapism.

Address the question on se.xual reproduction and stop waving it off with an escapist dry laugh. How and why did organisms become se.xual and se.xually reproductive. How does evolution account for this. What is the evolutionary explanation?

ooman: certainly, you are a bigot.

ooman: still doesn't mean your device is not different from electricity. they are different but one is dependent on another. its as simple as that, why this obfuscation.?

ooman: still doesn't mean your device is not different from electricity. they are different but one is dependent on another. its as simple as that, why this obfuscation.?

If you don't get that you analogy with electricity absolutely nailed you, then I should not bother with you.

Alfa Seltzer: It depends on what you call "life".

Don't mind him. Just exclude electricity from any electronic device and see if it will be "alive."

Alfa Seltzer: I still would love a response from deepsight on my question about successful species.

Numerically sustained success by propagation.

ooman: a machine cannot function without electricity, does creating electricity mean creating a machine? NO

life and water are different but life is dependent on water just like machine and electricity are different but machines are different from what powers them.

Now if a man makes a machine without making electricity, is it right to say he has created a machine? Now there is your answer.

Water would be useless without DNA, at least to life. so when talking about life components, water may be excused, just like when talking about a machine components, electricity maybe excused

You are lost. Go back and absorb the point. Your ramble here only argues my case for me.

plaetton: You believe in evolution. As a matter of faith or do you have any solid grounds to believe that everything, including biological systems, evolve?
Upon what solid grounds do you believe in evolution? when did it start, when does it end,if at all,what are the processes?
If you cannot answer any of the above, then it's quite obvious that your belief in evolution if grounded faith and zero or fragmented knowledge.
If so, you need to do a lot of homework .

Oh no, we observe growth and change in everything and as such believing that things evolve and change is not without grounds.

To say that you do not believe that it was unguided or blind is soooooo laughable that I honestly don't know what next to say to you.

To say that you believe that it was unguided or blind is soooooo laughable that I honestly don't know what next to say to you.

Let me guess, it was guided by the invisible hand of hoki poki, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or by Santa Clause, that's it.

YOU only show that you have nothing to discuss when you raise puerile strawjokes such as Santa Claus and FSM in a discussion such as this.

That't how ridiculous you sound.

You have no idea just how ridiculous you sound.

That kind of hokus pokus has no place in a debate on science, fore the simple reason that that invisible hand so proposed by you is a figment of your imagination. It does not even qualify as a theory because it is ground by nothing but a need fill the gap.

As shown in my post above, it is actually your beliefs that is a figment of your imagination. It does not even qualify as a theory because it is ground by nothing but a need fill the gap. The yawning gap between non life and life.

Why would a conscious immaterial omni omni being be guiding the very slow and error prone process of evolution when he could just snap his divine fingers, and in six days, viola! we have the universe, the stars, the earth and all living forms, including his perfect crown jewel, homo sapiens?

Because such a being would still be bound by logic and could only proceed logically. It is childish of you to expect any snapping fingers and magic tricks. Please reserve such talk for Christian and Muslim literalists when you debate them.

ooman: Now this is wrong..there is no life without DNA. life is not an irreducible unit. therefore DNA combination can be said to be life. DNA makes amino acid so the connection is right and you misunderstand. This is what I onced said and you misunderstood it to mean i claim life has been synthesized.

There is also no life without water! Would an experiment showing the creation of water therefore show emergent Life?

ooman: what do you mean by successful, complex?

you can start with a yes or no and then elaborate.

Numerical success. Propagation.

plaetton: Abiogenesis attempts to account for the emergence of life from simple organic molecules.


Abiogenesis – A brief history Even though Darwin himself focused on the origin of species, some scientists have tried to apply the concept of evolution to the first life to form the concept of abiogenesis. In 1924, Russian biochemist Alexander Oparin proposed that living cells arose gradually from nonliving matter through a sequence of chemical reactions. According to Oparin, gases present in the atmosphere of primitive earth, when induced by lightening or other sources of energy, would react to form simple organic compounds. These compounds would subsequently self-assemble into increasingly complex molecules such as proteins. [size=16pt]These, in turn, would organize themselves into living cells.[/size] In 1953, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey tested Oparin’s hypothesis by conducting an experiment that attempted to simulate the atmospheric conditions of primitive earth. In their experiment, water boiled into vapor at the bottom of a flask and then passed through an apparatus, combining with ammonia, methane, and hydrogen. They then subjected the resulting mixture to a 50,000-volt-spark before cooling and collecting it in a trap at the bottom of the apparatus. When Miller and Urey examined the resulting tar-like substance, they found a collection of amino acids, the building blocks of life. - See more at: http://www.allaboutscience.org/abiogenesis.htm#sthash.SQtMSzwJ.dpuf

Now although the theory of abiogenesis still has many problems and many questions to sort out, it lays the basic scientific idea of how simple living cells may have emerged from chemical reactions billions of years ago.
Infact, for all we know, such a process may have initially taken place in another galaxy several billions years further down the road,and perhaps transported to earth by meteorites or crashing comets.

Now, It is entirely up to you whether you accept or reject it.

Now , on the second issue of consciousness, again scientific thinking is now looking at the possibility that it arises as a result of quantum mechanical processes in the brain cells. In other words, it is possibly a biochemical function that occurs when the conditions are right , and not a divine attribute.
Again, it's either you keep an open mind or you keep your mind closed.

You are EXCEEDINGLY FUNNY!

And you dare go about saying this or that is "laughable" is a "fairy-tale" laughing at sky daddies and Santa Claus and all that! You are FAR worse! You make astonishing logical leaps and you believe in pure fantasy and even outright falsehood, and you dare pass it off as science or logic!

VERY SIMPLY:

ARE AMINO ACIDS LIVING THINGS?

Look at the bold in your quote above. Is there any experiment that has EVER shown that? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Just one? Any at all? ? ? ? ? ? ?

You refer to an experiment producing amino acids said to be the building blocks of life. You could just as well refer to an experiment producing star dust, as we are made of star dust, no? You could also refer me to an experiment producing water, as we are 70 per cent water, no? Can we not show an experiment combining Hydrogen and Oxygen to produce water? Is water not cardinal to life? Does such an experiment therefore disclose emergent life?

In fact look here, about your Amino Acids -

Amino acids (/əˈmiːnoʊ/, /əˈmaɪnoʊ/, or /ˈæmɪnoʊ/) are biologically important organic compounds made from amine (-NH2) and carboxylic acid (-COOH) functional groups, along with a side-chain specific to each amino acid. The key elements of an amino acid are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, though other elements are found in the side-chains of certain amino acids. About 500 amino acids are known[1] and can be classified in many ways. Structurally they can be classified according to the functional groups' locations as alpha- (α-), beta- (β-), gamma- (γ-) or delta- (δ-) amino acids; other categories relate to polarity, pH level, and side chain group type (aliphatic, acyclic, aromatic, containing hydroxyl or sulfur, etc.) In the form of proteins, amino acids comprise the second largest component [size=16pt](after water)[/size] of human muscles, cells and other tissues.[2] Outside proteins, amino acids perform critical roles in processes such as neurotransmitter transport and biosynthesis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acids

Just look at the bold!

Note that it says "the second largest component AFTER WATER!"

So in fact, it is apt to look at water as the most important component - and as such, an experiment producing water should be even more important than your experiment producing amino acids!

Is water a living thing. Does an experiment producing water therefore show emergent Life? Are Amino acids living things. Does an experiment producing Amino Acids therefore show emergent Life?

If an experiment produces the matter on which living things dwell, has such an experiment shown the emergence of life? Are amino acids living things? Has any experiment demonstrated the bold in your post above?

The truth is, the bold in your post above is a bare faced LIE: fantasy and imagination at work. It is a lie. It has not been shown to happen in ANY experiment anywhere ever, and you are yet happy to interpolate it to plug a gaping hole, a massive gap, in your worldview.

How dare you sound so presumptuous and then go ahead to cite something such as that bare faced LIE? Which experiment has ever shown that to happen anywhere? Such components forming living cells as said in the bold of yours? Just which? Kindly show me, good sir!

You see, we have seen this over and over. The gloating atheist intoxicated with the aroma of pseudo scientific philosophy such that he imagines himself reasoning at some higher level than the regular theist. It ALWAYS emerges that you fellows do not even have a clue of what you seek to discuss!

If you are so ready to gulp down such unsubstantiated claims, what makes you any different from the Santa Claus gang who you deride?

The bold in your post is a MOST disgraceful assumption built on nothing a fantastic leap of fantasy, never experimented, and never observed to occur anywhere at any time. It is far worse that Santa Claus!

And yet you smugly advance it? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

wiegraf: You're saying it cannot happen. Why not limit anonysms?

That's clearly false. Evolution has never been about 'more' or 'less' successful, that's fairly obvious. It's simply about what is successful.

Hence the ridiculous amounts of patch work and less than stellar designs in nature. Or do you think, for instance, the human female reproductive system, with its stellar design that has led to millions of deaths through the ages, is the most successful around? Or the design of our eyes against that of species with better, healthier eyesight? Or all the other species we lord over, they have more successful designs? Or even judging by biomass, those with more are than us are better designed than we are? Etc etc.

All of these less than perfect features/species did evolve, no? Or are you saying someone went around (and is still doing so, considering micro evolution) creating/incubating these? Only the optimal designs evolved naturally?

Do successful species over time evolve into less successful species?

The question is that simple. You can start with a yes or no and then elaborate.

Its quite obvious our atheists have no answers.

plaetton: No. It implies that the laws of physics, chemistry and biology produce consciousness when a unique electromagnetic threshold is reached. This also implies that it must have been possible only at a certain point in the biological evolution of the species.
Furthermore, it means that the universe did not begin with consciousness, but consciousness came much later as an evolutionary bi-product.

Same thing really. You still dont get that you are explaining a thing by referring to its engine, which is what needs to be explained.

Why dont you start by addressing my posers?

Pick one. Lets say the one on sexuality, reproduction and s.exual reproduction?

plaetton: Nothing that is said here is by any means a scientific treatise. So no one is being forced to accept anything.
In my original thread. I made it clear that I wanted to discuss and speculate.

Afterall, everything idea starts out as speculation.
There are some processes that are scientific facts, some are theories, some are hypothesis, and some are outright speculation.
A reasonable person is expected to weigh all.

I will not argue with theists that tell me that god is great idea or notion. Infact, it is.
Deeepsight and others postulate god, not as a theory but as fact, claiming intelligent design is evidence of an unseen, immeasurable, god.

I was quite surprised and glad to see that my wild idea of the origin of consciousness had already been given scientific consideration by scientists that quantum mechanical processes in the brain might be the origin of consciousness.

So every idea deserves to be considered by anyone who is honesty seeking knowledge and understanding.

Did you read again your statement which I asked you to read again?

Is the light emitted by a projector not explained by the internal mechanism of the projector? How does that show the projector to be undesigned?

Your statement reads like saying that a phone receives signals and the explanation for that is the phone. Circular and unhelpful reasoning in this matter, for the question is why and how the phone came to do that, and for what purpose.

Well I have given my very simple and clear posers. If anyone has something serious to say they should address the posers.

wiegraf: I will be back to address those I find si.lly, but exactly how does the bolded not translate to 'cannot happen'?

In other words it did happen, but could only be accounted for by factors extraneous to that which evolution accounts for in principle.

The point: Per the Theory of Evolution, creatures with attributes that enable survival will survive and propagate. There will be no evolutionary impetus for such creatures to evolve into less successful species. This will be absurd.

plaetton: Did you read the article?
It has great bearing on the topic being discussed.
It means that although not experimentally proven, that there is strong scientific basis to consider my personal theory that consciousness arises from quantum mechanical processes in the brain, and is therefore a product of evolution.

And to be brutally frank, one who rejects evolution for religious grounds is quite understandable.

But a person who accepts evolution but has a compelling need to sneak in and substitute the omni omni skydaddy of ancient fairy tales into the process , without any evidence whatsoever, with just simple fantasies, is to me, more ridiculous, more dogmatic, and more fanatical than religious zealots that we are accustomed to.

Read the bold again. Then read it yet again. Read it very slowly. Then close your eyes and think about that statement for just one minute only. One full minute.

Then please revert to me, identifying the disastrously large circular contradiction in that statement.

wiegraf: Largely correct, but just note, a few of those questions are fairly si.lly. Of the anonysm, time wasting mold; eg multi-cellular being less successful therefore it cannot happen. Even if true, being less successful != cannot happen.

I did not say that it cannot happen, I said that the evolutionary impetus for such would not exist, going by the fundamentals of the Theory of Evolution. Ergo, another external factor must account for it.

I will ask you to address yourself to the posers one at a time: You dont have to write a thesis on each, just state in one line why each is wrong or mis-footed. For the ones you consider s.illy, simply say that they are s.illy and then move on to the next.

Is this too hard a task, or you do not have the time (which would be understandable of course, we all have better things to do that prat about life and existence, which pratting changes nothing).

However, it seems to me that you cannot address the posers.

plaetton: Deepsight:
I was trying to reply your post and i got banned by the spambot.

I figured so...eventually.

I find it very very amusing that you would call me an escapist without even waiting to hear from me.
The irony is that you have recently earned that title over the last several weeks.
You confirmed that by opening this very thread.

I had opened thread a few weeks ago to discuss the possible origin of consciousness, and invited you to participate. But for some reason, you kind of shied away without addressing so many valid points that I put forward on that thread.


I wonder if you opened this particular thread as a backyard way to slam the theory of evolution without having to address my own points put forward on the other thread.

I told you the truth: namely that the issue of consciousness is so profound that I wanted to take my time. I explained this to you and even confessed that I found it confusing. So I took my time, and came back finally with my thoughts as to why it is simply untenable in my view to hold evolution alone responsible for consciousness.

That response was made in that same thread after weeks of thinking on it. I decided to make that post into a thread of its own in order to attract the opinions of other evolutionists on the question raised, because the other thread had cascaded down.

I dont think that is fair to the topic and to the other people who might not be able see this discussion in a broader perspective that includes my own postulations.

You are free to provide your own postulations here as well. In fact, if its too much work, i can go fetch them for you.

Now, you are pretending to put forward posers that demand answers?

I am not pretending to put forward posers: I have actually put forward posers - and very simple, clear and lucid ones too.

Most of you posers have been fully or partially addressed on my various postings on the my previous thread on this topic.

That is not true, AND EVEN if it is true, then simply answer the ones you believe have not been addressed at all so far.
You neither acknowledged nor rebutted them.

Like I said before, your take on this topic on this thread seems more like a legal summation for an uninformed jury , rather than a coherent argument for or against the theory evolution.

It appears that you simply do not wish to address the questions.