Difference between revisions of "Talk:Origin of Life"

Revision as of 20:04, October 12, 2008

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h ttp://www.genesispark.org/genpark/spongen/spongen.htm

Grammatical error

There are numerous instances in this article where "creationist" (singular) should be "creationists" (plural).

"athiest" should be "atheist"

Bootstrap problem

Why no mention thereof?

Scientific American

• Scientific American isn't really a journal. Masterbratac 15:03, 19 August 2007 (EDT)
  • Fixed. --Ed Poor ^Talk 19:26, 21 August 2007 (EDT)

Essay

This does not meet our standards for an article, but is an essay. --şŷŝôρ-₮K^{Ṣρёаќǃ} 20:46, 21 August 2007 (EDT)

References

Would anyone mind if I reformat the links in the references section? And not to involve myself in any controversy, but while the article is well-sourced, the anti-naturalistic origin quotes do seem a little densely packed at the moment... Feebasfactor 18:23, 17 September 2007 (EDT)

And while we're at it, the Mystery of Life Video Clips is an internal, not an external one

And while we're at it, the Mystery of Life Video Clips is an internal, not an external one, and therefore belongs in the See Also section. TheGySom 20:00, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

Fixed, but could you try and keep your headings shorter? Thanks. Philip J. Rayment 21:20, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

Thanks, I was trying to use a similar style to attract the attention of Conservative TheGySom 21:23, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

Heh. There are some people whose examples you should follow, and some you should not! :-) Philip J. Rayment 21:43, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

Rebuttals of problems

1. Chicken or the Egg problem regarding DNA and proteins: Numerous theories exist as to how either RNA or proteins could have first arisen, but more prosaically, the fact that we do not know exactly how this may have happened does not mean it did not happen. We don't know how gravity works either, but nobody's claiming it doesn't. Also, see #4

2. Complexity of the cell: The complexity of the cell has nothing to do with abiogenesis, as abiogenesis doesn't concern itself with the evolution of the cell, just the genesis of the most basic forms of life.

3. Catch 22 problem regarding oxygen and the early earth: Jason Dwarkin et al. discovered during experiments simulating conditions on early earth that surprising resulted in the formation of fluorescent bubbles capable of absorbing enough UV and converting it to visible light to protect organic molecules. [1]

4. Implausibility of the RNA World hypothesis. Altman and Cech won the Nobel Prize in 1989 for proving that RNA could act as a biocatalyst (like an enzyme) and sequence itself without proteins, proving the RNA world hypothesis plausible. [2]

5. Chirality problem: much like #1 there are a number of competing theories. Example: Toxvaerd [3]

6. Polymerization problem: like #1 again, numerous theories. example: Oro and Stephen-Sherwood [4]

Xyrophile 11:22, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

Your answers basically amount to faith that the naturalistic view will one day find evidence to support your point of view. Yes, the fact that we don't know how it happened doesn't mean that it didn't, but the article doesn't put it that way. It merely refers to them as "problems", not "impossibilities". And there's a difference between trying to explain the mechanism of something that's been observed (gravity) and something that has not been observed and which people do claim never happened. That scientists sometimes find some tiny piece of the puzzle (such as RNA acting like an enzyme in very limited ways) does not mean that the puzzle has been solved. Philip J. Rayment 09:02, 7 June 2008 (EDT)

No, my answers are to the effect that these particular examples are not considered problems by biologists at all, they're simply unresolved issues with a number of competing plausible theories that continue to be tested. As for the gravity example, well, we know that gravity exists because we observe its effects, and we know that life originated (and the rough timescale) through observation of its effects, mainly fossils and living creatures. The precise method by which the origin of terrestrial occured is scientifically better understood than the precise method by which gravity occurs. And yes, there are people who deny the existence of gravity. Xyrophile 16:53, 7 June 2008 (EDT)

Then your answers were wrong, because there are biologists who consider these to be problems. In any case, "unresolved issues with a number of competing plausible theories" is a euphemism for "unresolved problem".

Yes, we know gravity exists because we observe its effects, and we know life originated because it exists and could not always have existed, but we don't know that it originated naturalistically, because that was not observed nor is that logically deducible, unless you first start with the assumption of naturalism. Neither is even the rough timescale (the one you are referring to) known, for the same reason. No, the precise method by which terrestrial life occurred is not scientifically better understood, because scientists have nothing but explanations that don't fit what we do know. If you want to get pedantic about people claiming that gravity doesn't exist, then no, you have not shown that, because one person (singular) is not people (plural). If you don't want to be pedantic, then I'm not talking about the odd crackpot that rejects abiogenesis, but millions of people and thousands or tens of thousands of scientists.

Philip J. Rayment 09:01, 8 June 2008 (EDT)