Prebiotic Soup--Revisiting the Miller Experiment [biogenesis]

Science Magazine ^ | May 2003 | Jeffrey L. Bada and Antonio Lazcano

[f.Christian]

Do you think he needs a mummy - mentor ... an advisor - guide from the occult --- dark side ?

Are you the real freerepublic ... chanelling us - him ?

[js1138]

My question is directed at you. If you are afraid to tell us why you persist in promoting a site run by an anti-freeper, I'll move on.

[Vercingetorix]

Of course. The facts are mere observations or raw data. The scientist requires verification of his facts and repeatability. Newton's description of gravity is perfectly acceptable to the defender of a keep who is busy dropping rocks on an attacker's head.

[f.Christian]

I told Robinson - promised him what I'm going to do ...

posted it over there --- no secrets !



I've been on the FR ... this is my 6th year --- and personally I have outed - offed more liberal disrupters than probably anyone else --- put together !

For the 1st two years I kept a list in my memory I couldn't keep up with ...

I ain't gonna back down to any of you !

Will FR - America become a science fiction cult like you - yours ... there is ultimately an exit strategy for you - your cult buddies coming --- soon - hard !

[Doctor Stochastic]

...from generation unto generation...

[Loc123]

Don't think I arrived at this conclusion after looking at a mere smattering of journalistic headlines; I have been interested in the area of origins for 5 years.

I would seriously contend your notion that the "consensus" is that life originated on Earth--I was not making up those gigantic hexes that plague this theory. From what I've heard (based on many non-fringe articles), is that Earthly abiogenesis is at a wall and therefore the extra-terrestrial seeding notion is the primary theory at this moment (mostly due the the chirality conundrum I mentioned before).

Even if you don't agree that the mainstream of thought is for extraterrestrial, at least admit a significant minority is (after all, we have no statistical evidence, only anecdotal).

[js1138]

Panspermia is a rational conjecture, considering that space is full of organic molecules. It has nothing to do with the process of evolution, however, and it is just a conjecture.

[js1138]

I've been here two weeks longer than you. Thppppp!

[f.Christian]

better (( old - dumb paasing away )) !

[Loc123]

Yes, you are correct--its is only a conjecture.

You are also correct that it has little if anything to do with evolution (unless somehow life made a "choce" to be L instead of D, and that is based on L's superiority).

I merely was describing how this notion-- with dubious evidence at best but having at least acknowledged the problem of chirality-- is a mainstream if not the most plausible abiogenesis theory out there. And this to me shows the sad state of faith in abiogenesis.

Really, this thread's topic is woefully out of date and whose elements have already been disproved the more we learn about science.

[BiffWondercat]

It's down a few posts...

[Virginia-American]

given the evidence, a lot of people would themselves come to the conclusion of evolution all by themselves.

Indeed. The idea was "in the air" at the time. Lamarck, Cuvier, Wallace, and Matthew, among others, kew that life had changed drastically over the course of time. Fossils were being discoverred, the strange Australian fauna was no longer considered a hoax, the unique species on islands were becoming known.

Darwin is (rightly) given credit for a huge amount of empirical data and the mechanism of natural selection.

It's like Newton and Leibnitz (co-discovered calculus), or Hadamard and de la Valle Poussin (proved the prime number theorem within a month of each other).

If darwin hadn't done it, someone else certainly would have. The evidence is that compelling.

See this book review from a site titled "was Darwin wrong?".

Thomas Huxley, who became Darwin's main public defender, is reported to have said, "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!" source

[Kyrie]

We're here, so scientifically we have to assume...

That just about says it all, doesn't it?

[Virginia-American]

So what if they want ID presented as a theory.

Well, one of the "so what's" is that it's not a theory - it's a hypothesis, mere armchair speculation. To ascend to the ranks of theory, someone will have to come up with a version of ID that makes testable predictions. This is the scientific version of "put up or shut up".

If no constraints are put on the hypothetical designer, (ie if it is assumed to be the Christian God), then any observation would be compatable with the theory, and it cannot have any predictive power - you can always say "well, [the designer] coulda done that way".

The only constraints I've seen on these threads is a vague analogy with, of all things, software engineering! (eg "well, [the designer] could have done something like reuse code, even buggy code"). Needless to say, this doesn't say whay it's "hippo" and not "rhino" in my oft-posted example (if a pseudogene, transposon, etc is found in both cows and whales, it will also be found in hippos)

[Virginia-American]

If two theories are plausible, science should consider them both, until one of them is disproven.

And the second theory would be ... what? Has Dembski, Behe, or any other ID-ist even tried to get a critial review? See post 491

[PatrickHenry]

Dembski has made some rather interesting admissions. Highlighted at this post in another thread, which has a link to the whole article: HERE.

[donh]

Even if you don't agree that the mainstream of thought is for extraterrestrial, at least admit a significant minority is

Did I not just do so?

[donh]

is that Earthly abiogenesis is at a wall and therefore the extra-terrestrial seeding notion is the primary theory at this moment (mostly due the the chirality conundrum I mentioned before).

No, it is not "at a wall" not for chirality, or any of the "life takes too long" arguments. Mutational clocks could have been moving faster, or slower before mutation was the right thing to call what was going on. We could be way wrong about exactly where, on or in the planet, biogenesis took place. panspermia is a hot conjecture, but that's all it is at the moment. You have to discount the "oops, dropped the beaker" factor before you go looking seriously for explanations for anomolies outside the present paradigm.

[donh]

Maybe my brain is being controlled by panspermian extra-terrestrials, but I can't seem to remember how to find old threads I've bookmarked--can someone help me?

[PatrickHenry]

At your personal profile page, in very faint lettering at the top, there is "links" as one of the horizontal menu choices.