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To: LiteKeeper
But the fact remains, abiogensis (life from non-life) has been demonstrated as impossible.

Wrong. There are insufficient resources to eliminate all circumstances and conditions under which abiogenisis might occur. Abiogenisis has been demonstrated as impossible only under those circumstances that were tested and subsequently eliminated. I refer you to the null hypothesis: We assume abiogensis is false and attempt to demonstrate otherwise.

547 posted on 08/30/2002 6:00:15 PM PDT by Condorman
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To: Condorman
There are insufficient resources to eliminate all circumstances and conditions under which abiogenisis might occur.

Nice rhetoric, but totally disproved by modern science. There is a tremendous amount of proof against abiogenesis. First of all is Pasteur's proof that life does not come from inert matter (and this was of course at one time the prediction of materialists). Then came the discovery of DNA and the chemical basis of organisms. This poses a totally insurmountable problem to abiogenesis. The smallest living cells has a DNA string of some one million base pairs long and some 600 genes, even cutting this number by a quarter as the smallest possible living cell would give us a string of some 250,000 base pairs of DNA. It is important to note here that DNA can be arranged in any of the four basic codes equally well, there is no chemical or other necessity to the sequence. The chances of such an arrangement arising are therefore 4^250,000. Now the number of atoms in the universe is said to be about 4^250. I would therefore call 4^250,000 an almost infinitely impossible chance (note that the supposition advanced that perhaps it was RNA that produced the first life has this same problem).

The problem though is even worse than that. Not only do you need two (2) strings of DNA perfectly matched to have life, but you also need a cell so that the DNA code can get the material to sustain that life. It is therefore a chicken and egg problem, you cannot have life without DNA (or RNA if one wants to be generous) but one also has to have the cell itself to provide the nutrients for the sustenance of the first life. Add to this problem that for the first life to have been the progenitor of all life on earth, it necessarily needs to have been pretty much the same as all life now on earth is, otherwise it could not have been the source of the life we know. Given all these considerations, yes, abiogenesis is impossible.

549 posted on 08/30/2002 6:41:36 PM PDT by gore3000
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