In follow-up work to Miller and Urey’s groundbreaking study look at the synthesis of organic compounds in a primordial environment, it was shown that RNA monomeric bases could form under conditions similar to those of a prehistoric Earth. More recent work has shown how such individual bases, floating in a water environment, could link together into chains. […] A critical question that remained unanswered, though, was how the ancient RNA enzymes could survive.
Now researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the United Kingdom think they have cracked that puzzle. By placing RNA inside liquid pockets of water encased inside cooling ice, they found that RNA enzymes could function and at the same time escape degradation.
[…]
Thus the origin of life on Earth might not have been in a deep-sea vent or open ocean, but in a cold muddy puddle in the icy north or south, which contained a mix of water and organic byproducts of freed carbon from the Earth’s crust.
[…]
Over time this life form could have built up an arsenal of useful chemicals — evolution at its most basic microscopic form. The most critical developments would have been the creation of a protective phospholipid bilayer, the creation of protein enzymes to offer faster catalysis, and last, but not least, the switch to the more chemically stable DNA. Once a self-replicating RNA-lifeform gained these adaptations, it would at last have been ready to venture into warmer climates and begin to survive and reproduce, capturing the sun’s power to fix energy in carbon-based molecules.From there a long evolutionary road lay ahead, eventually reaching man and our zoological peers in the modern world.
Looks like no ‘creator’ needed after all. Just chemical reactions, evolution and vast, hard for humans to comprehend stretches of time. Parallels Stephen Hawking’s book that shows one wasn’t needed to have created the universe either.
Alfred post cycle:
1. Say something illogical/outrageous
2. Several people try to argue as if Alfred can be reasoned with
3. Alfred uses the bible as a backup argument
4. People start to realize that Alfred is either a troll or a crazy person
5. Alfred starts with the personal attacks and the lamest attempts to sound clever insults you’ve ever heard. For the 100th time. (…pea rolling down a 4 lane highway…)
6. Alfred posts a link to the goofy tennis pic
Hang in there folks, its almost over.
Notice one of those numbered entries was not ????- profit. I don’t think and of us are richer for this process.
So Alfred, care to explain why you believe that god didn’t use these exact mechanisms to create life and earth? Or, why you feel man would be incapable of understanding these mechanisms? I mean you have proven that you don’t understand the theory of how things evolve. Maybe this one is in your ballpark.
@ #34 Of course the conditions had to be prepared. Controlled conditions are the cornerstone of the scientific method. It’s funny to watch the faithful trying to obscure poor arguments with wordplay. But I guess that’s what your bible is all about.
Addressing the protype alfie in the process of becoming: Benji–outside of space, time, logic, and facts.
The Epicurus Logic Trap:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
and that is why I am anti-Theist. Even when god is proven to exist he becomes ony a tyrant to contest. Guns with silver bullets as my god first created werewolves in his image.
Silly Hoomans. On the cusp of creating life from primordial gas and still on its knees to the wind god.
Guessing and extrapolation. Pretty difficult to refute.
#39 “No need for proof, in an open system, anything is possible.”
Nope. So you have no proof, I take it? You were just making things up to try to cover your fallacy.
“That is your response to evolution not ocurring in our experience…that it can happen in an open system.”
Nope. That is *your* response.
Evolution not only can, but has and is occurring “in our experience”.
…and again, since you missed the key point: you were trying to disprove the possibility of evolution by applying a law that specifically only holds true for closed systems on an open system. It’s non-applicable to the context in question. Want to disprove evolution? Try something else — because that one is excluded by very definition.
#34 “Anyway the point missed in the article was that the scientist had to prepare the conditions and the ingredients for the RNA to form. That sounds like creation by an intelligence to me.”
That sounds far more like they didn’t have any primordial ooze lying around and they had to create some of their own in order to run their experiments — it’s kind of hard to come by these days (but not impossible… and every time we poke around where it occurs naturally, we find new weird stuff).
Oh, and for the record, the article has next to nothing to do with evolution — it’s about abiogenesis, which is something quite different.
Guessing and extrapolation as examined by testing for reproducible results. Refutation being the process of science.
Making fun of the basics, demonstrating total ignorance.
Stupid Human.
Alfie–you are lost truly and by your own free will. I answer for those on the edge of being as crazy as you.
God “could have” given us free will within a matrix of being inherently more loving creatures, but he did not.
The argument of free will only addresses the human based examples of evil. How about nature? Why does god allow plate tectonics to have volcanoes and tsunamis kill millions on a random basis? Why design a universe/planet with that evil? what freewill is involved with being born retarded? or without a brain?? Does god need that many more worshipers? Why illness at all.
And free will when god knows the trillions of decisions humans are making every day before he formed the universe? Logical? No.
You make a god you can’t understand, one that can’t exist and wrap it with words that don’t make any sense.
Why can’t I disagree with god and have him leave me alone? Why the tyrant?
Man up Alfie–your god is a dipshit.
#7
Alf where did your imaginary god come from who created it can you give us any proof or even a reason that doesn’t require buying into fiction?
Alf:God is infallible! The Bible is the true word of God.
Reality:oh but the Bible if full of faults so sorry no infallible God
Alf: ahhh.. the Bible is setup to teach not be a history book.
Reality: what an infallible know it all God could can’t teach and be accurate about geography, time, life the universe and everything?
My lowly primary school teachers my public schools could handle it, I guess they are more powerful that your God.
Alf: I was home schooled so ALL secular logic is worthless bit me.
Reality:enjoy your imaginary friends Alf
Again, not for Alfie: see what a belief in god leads to? Babbling as a fool. Good thing most religious types are more hypocrites than believers.
A signpost to the truth: look where Alfie types are pointing and go in the opposite direction. eg: Alfie next: a link to his tennis pals==go in the opposite direction to FARK and find this link to another Anti-Homo Mega Church leader being sued for pedophilia. All as god planned trillions of years ago and made it happen:
http://cnn.com/2010/CRIME/09/23/georgia.pastor.allegations/?hpt=T2
Ha, ha. Stoopid Human.
No need for a creator?
If you know enough to know that you can surely answer a couple of childishly simple questions.
Why does anything exist?
Where did the energy of which everything is made come from?
If you can’t answer those questions then you’re just as ignorant as the rest of us. You don’t actually have a clue if a creator is needed or not so stuff a sock in it.
Very interesting. What I’ve always been curious about is how you move from the RNA molecules that just form and exist on their own, to having fully organized and coordinated cells.
#60–Do-ill==yes, the ultimate mystery. How do you claim ignorance on the how and the creator at the same time? You claim “you know.” but all you can ever demonstrate is that you know nothing, or that what you claim to know is in error ((See Alfie re “the eye”)).
How is saying “We don’t know” any different than saying “God did it?” The how’s and why’s are still missing. but thats not the god you profess to worship. Your god is a “personal intervening god” is he not? That kind of activity is often proved not to exist.
Another religious fail as if that weren’t a redundant idea.
#10 “Actually, they have created life in the lab”
“Some even dispute whether a synthetic genome inserted into a pre-existing bacterial cell constitutes a new life form at all.”
http://tinyurl.com/34m2kay
#44
Do you believe that God who created all things, including time and space, is bound by those things which he created?
I think this being for which there is no scientific evidence to establish its existence, is only bounded by the human imagination in which it was invented.
#47
Epicurus Logic Trap is a false dilemma, there is a perfectly good reason why God would not prevent evil even though He is both able and willing, without Him being malevolent.
He is love.
Well, of course he/she/it is. What says love more than letting people suffer due to no fault of their own age upon age? What says love more than death by disease and intentional floods? What says love more than the very concept of hell?
God created free will creatures, not robots.
This is a non-sequitur if your deity is omnipotent. So which is it? Is it omnipotent or do people have free will and your deity has limits? It is impossible for both to be true.
#52
Where there are lots of different dogs, there aren’t dog/cats/bird creatures, which would exist if these all were evolving from a common ancestor.
Right, because there is only one kind of cat or bird. Oh wait…
#64
This is a non-sequitur if your deity is omnipotent.
Mistake on my part. That should read: This is a non-sequitur if your deity is omniscient.
The only thing more pathetic than someone who still denies evolution is a blogger who needs to reduce an interesting article to one more proof of it.
I won’t play into this argument other than to say it’s amazing how little the majority of people in this country really understand about basic sciences such as biology, chemistry, physics, and geology.
#67
You evaded the question. Is your deity omniscient or does man have free will? It can’t be both. If your deity is omniscient, then no overruling is necessary since it knows every decision you will make from birth through death before you make it. Is it omniscient or not?
#69
Physics? Chemistry? I’d be happy if people could simply formulate a logical argument.
Again, not for Alfie: your analogy is completely faulty. No one knows what the neighbor is going to do as the neighbor has free will and even with that unknown, other third parties/events can intervene. Further, “you” did not make your neighbor with all the options as to how your neighbor could act.
God could make free will operate within the confines of loving one another. He chose not to. You say then there is no free will? Well, god also did not give humans the ability to fly. Yet still we have free will when we cannot fly away from a situation. God chose the context within which we act.
The god you have made up is in short: “impossible.” God may “stand outside of logic” whatever that can mean but our understanding of him which is all that counts does not.
And a la George Carlin: where is this love for his children who disobey? As a mere human, I would not punish my kiddie for violating my rules. God does so much worse, for so little offenses. A tyrant and psychotic at that. A mean bastard, in the old and new testament.
Silly Alfie Types. Believing in that which makes no sense at all. You could at least become a Buddhist.
#60
“Why does anything exist?”
Why would you need to invent a god to justify existence?
and back at you why is god?
If i don’t know the answer to something I’m not going believe the most “Irrational Story Ever Told” I’m good with evidence-based scientific reality I don’t need made up answers
I pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster you will soon be able to apply critical thinking to what you believe.
#62 Having a personal and intervening God would be nice.
I can’t demonstrate that. Can you?
On the other hand it can be demonstrated that true believers and devote practitioners of many faiths when married to their own kind are one heck of a lot less likely to self destruct and their children do much better than those who are lukewarm or just playing it by ear using extremely secular rubrics to measure success.
The reason isn’t all that hard to figure out. They do the wrong thing less often and are much more consistent about doing the things that lead to success.
Or to quote the great philosopher Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Most people want to look out for #1. They want to do what they want to do when they want to do it and if other people don’t like it, tough. In relationships this seems to be a fail.
Devote believers bleep themselves and their families less often while getting it right more consistently.
70 Not sure of the reason for the question marks in your comment, but, both physics and chemistry are vitally important to the understanding of biology. Especially when it comes down to the interaction of biological components such as RNA, DNA, and enzymatic actions. I do agree that the many people when it comes to science fail to produce a logical argument. This is usually due to a misunderstanding of the nature of science. Although, there are those who simply fail to understand that two plus two can equal something other than four. It could be that they just like to hear the echo of their own voice inside their skulls.
#74–do-ill==you are being silly, on purpose, or have you forgotten your forum here is not a group of fellow grass eaters?
“I believe” that across the board on whatever destructive/malignant measure you wish to choose that the professed religious score the same as professed non-believers. Pick one: divorce, alcoholism, child abuse==go ahead, pick one. I’m sure there is “something” that actually separates the two from their natural humanity?
Pulease don’t say if a person rapes their own kiddie then they aren’t really religious? Because that is reliance on a tautology having nothing to do with being religious, merely being one end of the tautology.
So, must be part of your dogma to find another objective truth you believe the opposite of ((sic, yes awkward)). No salvation for the religious, on earth now, or later.
OH==I see you did form a tautology right from the start: “true believers.” Well if true believers are defined as those that never drink alcohol, then I must agree that true believers never drink alcohol.
Just puzzle me this: what percentage of self professed/proclaimed/practicing religious types are “true” to their beliefs??
Ha, ha. a tautology offered as proof.
Whadda dolt.
Do-ill, come up to periscope level. You’ve gone to deep in the stupid pool.
Oops, another faulty premise: keeping true to one’s faith says nothing about the validity of that faith. How many falsehoods and faulty logic can you issue in one argument?
Repeat the insults – rinse – repeat.
First, a posting to the editor.
I emailed this link to John C. Dvorak but he gets no spam. Or email either, apparently.
http://catholicintl.com/galileowaswrong/index.html
Kind of deserves a thread of its own but I think you can see how it kind of fits here too.
Now back to my usual trolling….
Remember when the universe did not exist?
That’s funny, neither do I.
If there ever really was absolutely nothing at any time in the past there would still be absolutely nothing.
Common sense, anyone?
Also, have they demonstrated an exception to the conservation of matter/energy yet? No?
Do you suppose that has any real-world implications?
Conclusion:
There never was absolutely nothing in total.
Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.
Although, I reserve the right to be skeptical if your account of events involves a lot of pixie dust….
#71
If your deity is omniscient, then free will cannot exist as it knows every decision you will make before you make it. Thus, there is only the illusion of free will. If you know every decision your neighbor will make from birth through death including the robbing of a bank before they are born, they have no free will.
Re #51 Alfred Persson:
“””
#47 Epicurus Logic Trap is a false dilemma, there is a perfectly good reason why God would not prevent evil even though He is both able and willing, without Him being malevolent.
He is love. God created free will creatures, not robots. It necessarily follows from will that is truly free, some would choose evil, and its from these that evil comes.
“””
You seemed to have suffered a false dilemma fault in your false dilemma fault handler.
Side-stepping the trivial question of the existence free will, it does not “necessarily follow” that where there is free will, some will choose evil.
Say, for the sake of argument, the Tree of Knowledge was planted in a nice spot somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy. Would the mere relocation of some fruit render Adam and Eve into some kind of mindless zombies?
It would be silly to say so. And yet, accepting the logic of the story, without access to the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and Eve would have been incapable of sin. And incapable of bringing evil into the world.
The planting of the Tree of Knowledge in the middle of the garden reveals some impatience on the part of the Divine Being if you ask me.
Which is not to slander the Divine Being but to introduce the idea that the Bible’s authors might be slandering the Divine Being from time to time in the construction of excuses for shoddy theology.
You know you’re down a rathole when you haul out the “eye is too complex to have evolved” argument.
#79
There is a vast difference between “I don’t know what happened before the universe existed” and “A supernatural being existed before the universe existed”. One statement is simply stating they have no answer while the other is making a specific claim.