hadriel you may want to look into chemistry and physics ...
Evolution: The Deal Breaker
by Hadriel 150 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Anders Andersen
Hadriel,
I know you're sincere in wanting to know. We are sincere in trying to explain.
It's possible initial life was Created and it still evolved by undesigned biological evolution. However such a supernatural Designer isn't a solution to any of the questions you've asked at all.
And I still fail to see how our lack of understanding of how life began influences or even invalidates our knowledge of how existing life evolved.
And what if we apply your line of reasoning wrt biological evolution to the other side of the story as well:
We don't know where a Creator/Designer/First Cause came from, nor have we any evidence of its existence. Without Creator nothing can ever be created. Hence I can't accept the creation story.
This together with your reasoning means that lacking any good explanation of how it all started, we neither evolved nor were we created, ergo we can't exist. Yet we do exist, even without a clear explanation how life began.
I'd love to have a conversation about the science behind what or how evolution began
Then let's discuss abiogenesis and chemical evolution, without needlessly conflating the discussion with biological evolution or supposed supernatural entities ;-)
BTW 'life' is an artificial, invented label. Where do we put it? At what specific point lies the boundary between 'just' a chemical process, and at what stage can we call this process 'alive'?
Jehalapeno, I'd upvote your comment much more if I could...
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Hadriel
Then let's discuss abiogenesis and chemical evolution, without needlessly conflating the discussion with biological evolution or supposed supernatural entities.
Never said you had to said you can't rule it out. And never said "God" because that's an assumption also. Considering the amount of suffering in the world if there was an intelligent being he/she/it may not be as most see them.
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Boomer
Hi I am new here. I am a witness who attended his last meeting about 2 weeks ago. I no longer believe in a personal god but I do find the problem of the origin of the first self replicator fascinating.
I think the reason why the problem is so difficult to solve is because the laws of physics and chemistry are fixed. The same chemical bond is used to attach the 4 different nucleobases (A,T,C,G) to their sugar phosphate backbone.
The order in which the nucleobases are arranged is not influenced by any physical or chemical law making a functional sequence more probable than a non-functional arrangement.
As origin of life researchers don’t like to think of chance as being the answer, they have to try and find a way a demonstrating through the laws of chemistry that a functional sequence is more probable than a non functional one. At the moment they have been unable to do this. As the laws of chemistry are the same today as they were 3 billion years ago. There is no new variable to add to the equation.
We know the ingredients involved (A,T,C,G) and the laws which govern them. We now have to demonstrate how they happened to arrange themselves in the correct order to produce a self-replicating molecule. The person who solves this will become as famous as god.
The article below summarizes the problem.
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WhatshallIcallmyself
To those who really want to learn about life's origins:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/
The first link (Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations) has 29 references that link you to actual papers published by scientists on subjects relevant to this discussion thread. In other words, if you want to learn the science then that is a good starting point for you (it was for me 10+ years ago...). You will certainly learn a lot more there than arguing on here when it is clear that the nomenclature is not yet understood by some.
To those who just want a light read:
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cofty
Reposted since you totally ignored it earlier
Hadriel - Let me propose the following analogy.
You are on a jury. The prosecution lawyer has finished presenting the case against an alleged murderer.
He has submitted DNA evidence, forensics, fingerprints, CCTV, multiple eye-witness testimony, phone records, ballistics and much, much more. Not a single piece of evidence has been refuted. The case is watertight.
The defense lawyer has only one thing to say as follows...
"We accept that there is a great deal of compelling evidence against my client however I put it to you that he is not the originator of this crime. He was paid to commit the killing by an unknown third party. Since nobody knows who this conspirator is, all of the evidence against my client is irrelevant."
This is exactly how your objection sounds to me.
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Ruby456
the problem is that your case is far from watertight. -
OneGenTwoGroups
cofty -
It's more concrete than that.
It's like the murderer is caught murdering by the police, it's on HD video, and confesses, but his defense lawyer says "since there is no evidence for how he arrived at the murder scene, all the evidence and his confession about the murdering is irrelevant".
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M*A*S*H
@Hadriel
I think it is time to move on from the point scoring banter on this thread and get back to your original OP. I think you and I both know I am not about to post anything on this forum that comes anywhere close to proving how life got started. There are interesting hypotheses centred around the RNA world (which you have discounted, but I'll come back to that) and I would like to consider the following two papers.
Back in 2009 nature published a 'Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions'. This describes the potential for pyrimidine ribonucleotides to form sequences whilst bypassing difficult free ribose and the nucleobases.
I am not an expert in chemistry, however this shows a summary of the chemistry from the paper. This is the paper or here. Maybe you have an OpenAthens account to access this or Nature account? The second link seems open.
Obviously this paper led to lots of new research into the area... and if you jump to 2011 you can read through this paper (which thankfully is open). Here given the blood sweat and tears of previous research the paper can build from the proposed mechanics to discussing what would constitute life and where the boundary should be drawn.
Without wanting to appeal to authority too much, it seems to me that the grounding of these papers is well researched especially when they have considered the plausibility of the starting conditions and pathways that would not require unrealistic jumps in complexity.
Your OP demands potential for amino acids to DNA. Clearly we are not there in the above papers, but would agree that the papers cannot just be discarded as junk science?
Also your OP states "RNA as a precursor is not plausible due to complexity so how did the proteins needed for life get created." I would like for you to explain this statement to me a little more. Are you suggesting the RNA is more complex than DNA? If you discard RNA as 'plausible' due to complexity, why would you then go on to ask for methods that jump straight to DNA? I really do not understand your statement, please elaborate and perhaps I could get my head around what you mean.
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M*A*S*H
@Hadriel
Just wondering if you have had chance to consider the information provided. I thought I had gone some way to providing links to information that help answer your OP. You said...I'd really like to get back to the original topic at hand here.
I spent the best part of an evening discovering, reading and sorting suitable research papers, eventually ending up with two that give a good view on the topic... were you even interested in finding the answers to your questions in the first place?
Theories around RNA and other concepts as the catalyst. That's really what I'm interested in.
I posted the topic honestly and yet here we are...
Given there are serious unknowns its all on the table.
But again I'm particularly interested in the concepts which caused simple amino acids to be charged resulting in proteins which begin chaining and building life.