Science still doesn't have the answers on how life first appeared

by EndofMysteries 69 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • EndofMysteries
    EndofMysteries

    Since so many athiests in this thread, and since I'm going to college, I was curious if what I would learn in biology would change my thoughts and show that life clearly and easily spontaneously happened. Well it hasn't, at all. 

    Just looking up the origins of DNA or RNA there is nothing conclusive. 

    I wonder are athiests convinced life (on planet Earth and life as we know it) convinced that it all happened by chance?  Or are athiests just convinced the creator as described in religion is incorrect but believe our life may have had some intelligent life preceeding it? 

    For example, scientists today are able to manipulate life. They can't create it out of thin air but they can manipulate it, GMO, etc. 

    Even if I did not believe in a creator as described in religion, based on everything so far, I'd say some type of other life was responsible for us.  It's like breaking down a building, if you see a building and with enough research it comes down to blueprints, but the blueprints, where did they come from?  

    It would be easier to believe an advanced life/civilization with scientists who mastered biology were able to create cells, code DNA to make any sort of biological life they wanted, features, etc.  They would have programmed it to adapt as well to environmental changes, evolution.  

    In biology class, when talking about plants, going over how fruit trees make fruit sweet to attract animals to eat it so it spreads it's seeds, etc.  There is some type of intelligence in that. 

    With computers, perhaps soon able to create AI, advances in science and biology, it seems we are all biological robots programmed with advanced AI and self aware. 

    It's almost a possibility we are all just a computer program/simulation as well. Could WE produce a program and AI so advanced within a computer it becomes self aware?  A video game of a simulated universe and Earth, having creatures on it, etc.  Then having people on it, programmed with really advanced AI where they become self aware. Have constraints where they can't possibly travel or see the edges of the world. If they became as smart as us, they still couldn't go beyond what we allow them to see. If they investigate their life origins, they would hit the end of the road for how the first ones appeared as well. 

    Anyway, I just wonder how so many are convinced everything is by chance.  If it's because of religion then have you considered maybe all religions have it wrong? 



  • Simon
    Simon

    To be fair, religions don't have the answer: I don't consider "magic happened" to be any sort of explanation.

    Science is always getting a better understanding of life and how it 'works' as well as the universe itself and how it may have originated.

    It's almost a possibility we are all just a computer program/simulation as well. Could WE produce a program and AI so advanced within a computer it becomes self aware? A video game of a simulated universe and Earth, having creatures on it, etc.

    There are scientists who look at how we would detect whether we are in a simulated existence. How would such a simulation reveal itself or be detectable to those inside it?

  • cofty
    cofty

    You are all over the place. Are you talking about abiogenesis or evolution of complexity?


  • rmt1
    rmt1
  • Simon
    Simon
    Even if I did not believe in a creator as described in religion, based on everything so far, I'd say some type of other life was responsible for us

    So your explanation of how life began is that some life put it there?

    NEWSFLASH: Any explanation for the origin of a thing that relies on the thing itself pre-existing and being part of the story isn't really an origin explanation.

  • Island Man
    Island Man

    The notion that life on earth was created by other preexisting intelligent life, does not really answer the question of life's origin, does it? It's only kicking the proverbial can further down the road. What about the origin of the preexisting intelligent life that created life on earth? See, we're right back at square one only now we have to explain the origin of the preexisting intelligent life that created life. And if the answer to this is still even earlier preexisting intelligent life then we have to account for this too . . . and on and on ad infinitum. The buck will eventually have to stop at a simple, natural, scientifically plausible explanation for the origin of life. So the intelligent life creating life explanation is ultimately a non-answer.

    While it is true that scientists do not know with certainty exactly how life began, there are however, multiple scientifically plausible hypotheses for the origin of life, that do not involve intelligent design of any kind. Put these on one end of a credibility balancing scale and on the other end put the very incredible, unprovable, unprecedented, scientifically implausible idea of a supernatural, eternal, all-powerful, uncreated, intelligent being. Now be honest with yourself: which direction should the credibility balancing scale tilt to? However inconceivable the idea of complex life originating from natural, non-intelligent means may seem to you, you would have to admit (if you really think about it honestly and objectively) that the idea of a supernatural origin is far more inconceivable/incredible.

    The truth of the matter is using the supernatural to explain the origin of natural life is very illogical and irrational because the existence and origin of the supernatural begs a far greater explanation than the origin and existence of the natural life that it is being used to explain. By way of illustration, using the existence of a supernatural, uncreated, eternal deity to explain the origin of life is tantamount to a foolish man borrowing 1,000,000 dollars to pay off a 100 dollar debt instead of working overtime to raise the 100 dollars. Scientists are working to raise the proverbial 100 dollars. Theists lazily go into a further debt of 1,000,000 dollars to pay off the 100 dollar debt - all the while telling themselves they're no longer in debt and denying it whenever anyone points to the fact that they're now 1,000,000 dollars in debt. LOL.

  • Finkelstein
    Finkelstein

    Since so many atheists in this thread, and since I'm going to college, I was curious if what I would learn in biology would change my thoughts and show that life clearly and easily spontaneously happened.

    First off biological evolution doesn't just easily and spontaneously just happen, it does happen though from a molecular and cellular organism level over a extremely long length of time developed from specific ecological environments.

     Organismal biology, the study of structure, function, ecology and evolution at the level of the organism, provides a rich arena for investigation on its own, but also plays a central role in answering conceptual questions about both ecology and evolution. Organisms connect ecology, physiology, and behavior to the fields of comparative genomics, evolutionary development, and phylogenetics. Organisms are crucial to all of comparative biology, which becomes increasingly potent as the genomes of more and more organisms are sequenced and annotated.

    By the way your not going to learn about any of this reading Watchtower magazines.  

     

  • Viviane
    Viviane

    I was curious if what I would learn in biology would change my thoughts and show that life clearly and easily spontaneously happened. Well it hasn't, at all.

    It also won't show you magical unicorns. You are looking for something that doesn't exist.

    I wonder are athiests convinced life (on planet Earth and life as we know it) convinced that it all happened by chance?

    What does being an atheist have to do with not believing life started by chance?

    I'd say some type of other life was responsible for us.

    OK, how this their life get started? That's not an answer at all....

    In biology class, when talking about plants, going over how fruit trees make fruit sweet to attract animals to eat it so it spreads it's seeds, etc.  There is some type of intelligence in that.

    Why?

  • Giordano
    Giordano
    If we look at this in reverse, where we are now, the following is worth thinking about: 

    1. How many species on Earth? About 8.7 million, new ...

      "Aug 24, 2011 - About 8.7 million (give or take 1.3 million) is the new, estimated total number of species on Earth -- the most precise calculation ever offered -- with 6.5 million species on land and 2.2 million in oceans. Announced by the Census of Marine Life, the figure is based on a new analytical technique." 

       It suggests to me that life evolved through natural processes because we still see it happening. The materials/time were here for life to form slowly and organically.

      And from poster rmt1 this:


      "Carbon-rich meteorites, carbonaceous chondrites, contain many biologically relevant organic molecules and
      delivered prebiotic material to the young Earth. We present compound-specific carbon isotope data
      indicating that measured purine and pyrimidine compounds are indigenous components of the Murchison
      meteorite. Carbon isotope ratios for uracil and xanthine of δ13C = +44.5‰ and +37.7‰, respectively, a non-terrestrial origin for these compounds. These new results demonstrate that organic compounds, which are components of the genetic code in modern biochemistry, were already present in the early solar system and may have played a key role in life's origin.


       

  • Island Man
    Island Man
    In biology class, when talking about plants, going over how fruit trees make fruit sweet to attract animals to eat it so it spreads it's seeds, etc.  There is some type of intelligence in that. 

    I mean you no offense, but this statement by you reveals that you do not fully understand the concept of natural selection. Complexity and suitable "design" is "built" incrementally into a species over very long periods of time because those traits - and hence those genes - that give an organism an advantage at survival and reproduction naturally increase in frequency and degree as those organisms with those traits live longer and reproduce more. The environment filters those traits most suited to it.

    But keep in mind the environment is not just the inanimate surroundings. It includes other animals that a species interacts with. Now at some point early in history plants might have produced seeds with quite a wide variety of traits - some plants would have produced seeds with food for the seed to use to start germinating. Of course the amount of food produced by each plant together with its seeds would vary. Also the sugar content of the food would also vary.

    At the same time animals are also evolving in their environment which includes plants. Animals with the traits that enabled them to make use of plant food evolved to suit an environment of eating plant food. Naturally, the traits of taste would vary from animal to animal. Those animals that preferred the sweet taste produced by some plants together with their seeds would have had an advantage because they got higher energy food from those plants meaning they can go longer on less food because of the high energy content of sweeter fruits. So gradually the species evolved to prefer sweet fruits.

    At the same time those plants who happened to produce sweet food with their seed now got a survival advantage because since animal species evolved to prefer that taste it means those plants get more feeders and hence more dispersers of their seeds. So those plants producing sweet tasty foods with their seeds naturally continued evolving along this line and gradually the food packaged with the seeds grew more and more since increasing size of the food package is the trait that would be advantageous in an environment of animal dispersers eating the plant food. 

    So plants and animals evolved in tandem with each other mutually selecting each others traits in an evolutionary ballet to arrive at the situation today where plants produce sweet fruits that animals are attracted to and spread the seeds.

    Think of it this way: Evolution is not by chance. Evolution is actually by design - design without purposeful conscious intelligence. Design that occurs incrementally over a very long periods of time due to natural laws of physics interacting with statistical probabilities inherent in genetics and reproduction. The animal species is thus essentially "sculpted" by its environment. Think of sand dunes. They are shaped in a particular way, not by intelligence but by the action of the wind - by a natural, unintelligent, purposeless force. Think of a hurricane. A hurricane is actually an engine! It is designed by its environment - the prevailing atmospheric conditions and the laws of physics shape it into the marvelous symmetrical spiral engine that it is. You need to get rid of the notion that design necessarily requires purposeful intelligence. One of the fundamental principles at the heart of sustainable designs arising in the natural world is the concept of positive feedback loop. Once a phenomenon results in a positive feedback loop its existence continues and may even get greater. This is what happens with hurricanes.

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