Spinoffs from Do you believe in Evolution poll thread

[REASON]

life comes from life.

where is the proof of life, just happening?

 

so the scientists that "created" this primative life were not "alive"?

sometimes we have to think outside the box.

 

Obviously, your theory is that all life is created by other life. What then is the life that created the first life, and so on? This means that life wasn't actually created, or has any origin, it perpetually exists. This would mean that not even God created life since God cannot be demonstrated to be alive.

 

Somehow I don't think this is what you were trying to suggest was it? You might have to think a bit further outside your box.

 

The answer is that in nature, the elements physically interact with one another forming unique compounds that in time, with the right elements and environment, can develop the ability to make copies of themselves. It's chemistry, and it's referred to as abiogenisis.

 

Did you take chemistry in High School?

[Thunderbird]

Obviously, your theory is that all life is created by other life. What then is the life that created the first life, and so on? This means that life wasn't actually created, or has any origin, it perpetually exists. This would mean that not even God created life since God cannot be demonstrated to be alive.

 

Somehow I don't think this is what you were trying to suggest was it? You might have to think a bit further outside your box.

 

The answer is that in nature, the elements physically interact with one another forming unique compounds that in time, with the right elements and environment, can develop the ability to make copies of themselves. It's chemistry, and it's referred to as abiogenisis.

 

Did you take chemistry in High School?

 

I did take chemistry and also biology, but I do not understand how anyone can say scientist can create life. Amino acids are the building blocks of life, not life , no one has created life in a lab or has explained how self replicating life initially formed. Our scientific understanding of this of this process is still based upon observation of cellular activity after the fact of an unknown process of abogenesis event, and remains conjecture. Until the time someone actually creates an autopoetic self replicating cell it will remain so.

[REASON]

I did take chemistry and also biology, but I do not understand how anyone can say scientist can create life.

 

I don't believe I said that.

 

 

Amino acids are the building blocks of life, not life , no one has created life in a lab or has explained how self replicating life initially formed. Our scientific understanding of this of this process is still based upon observation of cellular activity after the fact of an unknown process of abogenesis event, and remains conjecture. Until the time someone actually creates an autopoetic self replicating cell it will remain so.

 

That's right. It's a scientific theory. And the fact is, life exists and has naturally developed somehow. I don't agree with the idea that life is perpetual, or that an eternal god manifested life. Abiogenesis is the most plausible current explanation in my opinion. If evidence comes about that produces a better explanation for the origins of life, my opinion will remain amendable.

[Thunderbird]

I don't believe I said that.

 

 

 

 

That's right. It's a scientific theory. And the fact is, life exists and has naturally developed somehow. I don't agree with the idea that life is perpetual, or that an eternal god manifested life. Abiogenesis is the most plausible current explanation in my opinion. If evidence comes about that produces a better explanation for the origins of life, my opinion will remain amendable.

 

 

My apology, I was lumping. I feel that origins of life can not be adequately explained by chemistry, biology alone, but by some intrinsic quality of Quantum Mechanics .

[CraigD]

it [influenza] wouldn't be changing if they hadn't of started the stupid vacines.

bad idea, they should have never started that.

Goku, can you support these claim with data of any kind? :D:Exclamati

 

It’s important to understand that, for the roughly 80 years that influenza has been studied well enough to identify substrains (by the human and animal antibodies that appear in response to infection), it’s been known that there are always many substrains in the wild at any given time, and that the virus, and the antibodies that respond to it, change continuously. This was observed for roughly a decade before the first flu vaccines were developed and used.

 

The idea that flu vaccination is a “bad idea” would, I think, appear a very strange one to people who experienced, or have had much contact with people who experienced, the 1918-20 H1N1, from which an estimated 20-40 million people – 1 to 2% of the world population - died.

 

(sources: wikipedia article “Influenza”)

 

While I don’t think flu vaccines are “a bad idea”, I suspect that unrealistic expectations of their efficacy, and of the efficacy of post-infection antiviral treatments (eg: Tamiflu), both by laypeople and healthcare providers, may divert needed attention from other important prevention techniques. Also, the lack of recent memory of a major outbreak of an unusually dangerous flu strain has, I believe, lured many people into considering it a minor disease. Both of these trends, though arguably unavoidable, contribute at present to a small increase in number of preventable deaths, and may at some near future time result in loss of life on the scale of the 1918-20 epidemic.

 

Although off-topic for a discussion of evolution, an accurate understanding of major human diseases is, I think, important enough for a sidebar in any discussion.

[REASON]

My apology, I was lumping. I feel that origins of life can not be adequately explained by chemistry, biology or alone, but by some intrinsic quality of Quantum Mechanics .

 

I know you do. You've been trying to express your ideas about that on a number of threads with some difficulty. Whether you know it or not, I have felt that you have brought some interesting ideas to the table to consider. I wish there were more reasearch done in the area of origins. A more fully developed theory might help to put a lid on this debate.

 

But I doubt it.

[InfiniteNow]

I did take chemistry and also biology, but I do not understand how anyone can say scientist can create life.

 

You don't have to be a scientist. You can do this yourself. Here's how:

 

 

You can also make life in your own kitchen.

 

Call Sigma Chemical Co. at 800-325-3010 and order 1 bottle of catalog number M 7145 and one bottle of R 7131 amino acids solutions (you need both to get all the amino acids http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/sigma/formulation/M5550for.pdf). They will cost you about $40 plus shipping for both. Empty the bottles into a fying pan, turn the heat on low and heat until all the water is evaporated. Then heat for 15-60 minutes. Add water. You will have protocells in the solution.

[Thunderbird]

You don't have to be a scientist. You can do this yourself. Here's how:

 

Again, amino acids does not cut it,:cheer: Autopoetic and self replicating Life

[InfiniteNow]

What do you think a protocell is? Do you even know? :cheer:

[Thunderbird]

What do you think a protocell is? Do you even know? :cheer:

I know that it is not life. do you know what defines life? As far this being called a “pro-cell” this is misleading because unless this "proto-cell” can self-replicate and maintain an autopoetic system it cannot be defined as a precursor to life, only an assemble of amino acids.

[InfiniteNow]

I know that it is not life. do you know what defines life? As far this being called a “pro-cell” this is misleading because unless this "proto-cell” can self-replicate and maintain an autopoetic system it cannot be defined as a precursor to life, only an assemble of amino acids.

 

See, now you're moving the goal posts. It's like the whole god of the gaps approach. Here's a gap you can't explain, it must be god. So, we explain it, and you say, "Oh no, I meant this other gap." So we explain that too, so you say, "oh no, I meant this other gap..." ad infinitum.

 

Okay tough guy...

 

Give us YOUR definition of life. I'll tell you how it comes about without unprovable ethereal conjecture.

[Thunderbird]

See, now you're moving the goal posts. It's like the whole god of the gaps approach. Here's a gap you can't explain, it must be god. So, we explain it, and you say, "Oh no, I meant this other gap." So we explain that too, so you say, "oh no, I meant this other gap..." ad infinitum.

 

Okay tough guy...

 

Give us YOUR definition of life. I'll tell you how it comes about without unprovable ethereal conjecture.

Like I have said three times, in three seperate post..

1

autopoetic self replicating cell

2

Autopoetic and self replicating

3

can this "proto-cell” can self-replicate and maintain an autopoetic system?

 

Also If you read my post I said our understanding of origins will be furthered by an

intrinsic quality of Quantum Mechanics

 

Debating creationist has made you defensive and you are over reaching the bounds of what science can tell us about the origins of life. Also paranoid , in that you are seeing them where they do not exist. I am on the side of complexity, not creationism, I have made that very clear.

[Essay]

...kinda outa the blue....

 

Making an idiot of myself, I originally answered the survey "No," to make the semantic point about not "believing IN" something.

 

But YES, evolution is a valid theory, I believe.

 

What is all this discussion about defining life? Darwin's theory avoids this question. It's called,

"On the Origin of Species," not "...the Origin of Life."

 

btw...

If you're defending evolution, knowing about epigenetics is a must. (Just google "epigenetics")

Epigenetics provides a whole new level of evolutionary mechanisms and potential.

 

also see:

...MSRI - MSRI Biology Colloquium Lecture with Dr. Odell in the Simons Auditorium at MSRI's Chern Hall[/url]

"For Making Genetic Networks Operate Robustly, Unintelligent Non-Design Suffices"

 

...but I do like the quantum link with Life's origin. :cheer:

[InfiniteNow]

Like I have said three times, in three seperate post..

 

I presume you mean "Autopoietic?"

 

I am curious as to why we were discussing life and you've limited your definition of life to only that which is able to, using it's own resources, build structures within itself.

 

All of the operational features of an Autopoietic system are active and referred to solely within the bounds of that system, so your approach seems to blatantly ignore environmental inputs and pressure.

 

The simple fact of the matter is that amino acids led to protiens which led to cells like eukaryotes. The eukaryotic cell is probably the first example of what you have decided constitutes life, but that seems an arbitrary distinction which ignores all of the life which is not advanced as the eukaryote.

 

It sounds an awful lot like "show me a half a lung," or "where's the fossil between man and monkey." Are you sure you're not a creationist?

 

 

 

Center for Eukaryotic Structural Genomics (CESG) - National Institute of General Medical Sciences

 

A manuscript describing this work is in preparation.

[Thunderbird]

I presume you mean "Autopoietic?"

 

I am curious as to why we were discussing life and you've limited your definition of life to only that which is able to, using it's own resources, build structures within itself.

 

All of the operational features of an Autopoietic system are active and referred to solely within the bounds of that system, so your approach seems to blatantly ignore environmental inputs and pressure.

 

 

 

An autopoietic system is a flow of energy from the environment though the internal system .Your blatantly ignoring the fact that a living thing is not defined by structure, but by dynamics. A cyclical flow of energy. Under your definition a corps is a living thing.

 

Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela see in metabolism the essence of something quite fundamental to life. They call it "autopoiesis." Coming from Greek roots meaning self (auto) and making (poien, as in "poetry"), autopoiesis refers to life’s continuous production of itself. Without autopoietic behavior, organic beings do not self-maintain—they are not alive.

An autopoietic entity metabolizes continuously; it perpetuates itself through chemical activity, the movement of molecules. Autopoiesis entails energy expenditure and the making of messes. Autopoiesis, indeed, is detectable by that incessant life chemistry and energy flow which is metabolism. Only cells, organisms made of cells, and biospheres made of organisms are autopoietic and can metabolize. —Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, What is Life?

 

 

=InfiniteNow;209772 It sounds an awful lot like "show me a half a lung," or "where's the fossil between man and monkey." Are you sure you're not a creationist?

 

Earlier in the thread when I mistakenly lumped reason with an opinion that he did not share I apologized, I did not, like your doing now, suggest that he was lying.

[InfiniteNow]

It wasn't my intention to suggest you were lying. If that is how I came across, then I sincerely apologize.

 

To be clear, my intention was to suggest that you were delusional. Sorry for the confusion. :doh:

[Thunderbird]

 

The simple fact of the matter is that amino acids led to protiens which led to cells like eukaryotes. The eukaryotic cell is probably the first example of what you have decided constitutes life, but that seems an arbitrary distinction which ignores all of the life which is not advanced as the eukaryote.

 

 

 

You have falsely accused me of moving the goal post on what defines life, which I obviously did not. Now what are you saying here? I am not ignoring any accomplishments of science, or evolution. I am simply reminding you what the widely accepted definition of life is.