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To: general_re
Not really. It just pushes the problem back to where it's always been.

Yup, the evidence presented in the FAQ quoted by andrewc pushes the problem of abiogenesis back where it has always been - the dreams of atheists. The following is why abiogenesis is not science and is totally impossible based on our scientific knowledge (which as our knowledge has increased, has made the possibility of abiogenesis even more impossible):

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.

768 posted on 03/17/2003 6:45:18 PM PST by gore3000
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To: gore3000
Yup, the evidence presented in the FAQ quoted by andrewc pushes the problem of abiogenesis back where it has always been - the dreams of atheists. The following is why abiogenesis is not science and is totally impossible based on our scientific knowledge (which as our knowledge has increased, has made the possibility of abiogenesis even more impossible):

Abiogenesis is not central to the theory of evolution. Your primary argument against it is the old "impossible because it's random" argument. Evolution is NOT random. I'm not a biochemist, but I'm willing to bet that abiogenesis is also NOT random either. Also, you're Pasteur example is not very good. Pasteur was looking for bacteria growing in an organic broth. Bacteria did not spontaneously appear in broth then, and noone is suggesting they spontaneiously generated way back when. The question of life's first origins is tricky, particularly because I don't think anyone's found fossilized organic sludge to give us an idea of what that early life might have looked like. However, this is a limitation of observational capabilities rather than an indictment of any theories about this period in Earth's history.

864 posted on 03/18/2003 10:52:46 AM PST by gomaaa
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