Viral Life from Outer Space? Not Likely.

ICR ^ | June 8, 2009 | Brian Thomas, M.S.

[GodGunsGuts]

Viral Life from Outer Space? Not Likely.

by Brian Thomas, M.S.*

Since a whole, functioning cell could not possibly emerge spontaneously from non-living matter, many evolutionists believe that simpler viruses were the first step towards the development of life. Researchers in Finland conducted a test on the survivability of viruses inside bacterial spores, which some scientists hypothesize may have travelled through space on meteoroids to seed life on earth. What the study discovered, however, is that life springing from space-borne viruses was highly unlikely.

The question of life’s beginnings has been vexing to Darwin’s supporters. After a lifetime of speculating on naturalistic scenarios for the origin of life on earth, famous Russian evolutionist A. I. Oparin...

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Since a whole, functioning cell could not possibly emerge spontaneously from non-living matter, many evolutionists believe that simpler viruses were the first step towards the development of life.

Strawman.

Most biologists believe that life originated in replicating molecules resulting from organic molecules already existing on earth and in space.

Viruses are much too complicated. Prions probably are too.

[BrandtMichaels]

muawiyah - You can talk about this as science all you want but life from outerspace has not been observed. Those little critters still need certain conditions to support life - conditions that have not been proven for outerspace - the hot and cold temperature extremes alone must both be applied due to the extreme cold of outerspace w/ no atmosphere plus the extreme heating they would all be subject too upon re-entry into any planet suitable to support life.

Also I’ve heard of no traditional religious response calling them a ‘separate creation’ - my Bible tells me that God created all creatures - great and small, visible and not visible to the naked eye.

[muawiyah]

The little critters 7 miles deep live without atmosphere or light. They can live without heat. They derive their energy from the energy stored as excess electrons in valence shells in the rocks around them.

That's all they need.

They survive an environment on Earth that's no more rigorous than in the rocks of Venus or Mars, or at the rocky core of Jupiter.

It's just a matter of time ~ years, maybe only months, and we'll have evidence that these same critters live elsewhere in this solar system. It'll take a bit longer to demonstrate that for our end of the Galaxy.

[muawiyah]

That's why I referred to the Mother Church of us all up to the 1500s ~ the Catholic Church. Over the centuries Church Fathers have discussed the nature of critters not of our realm, or not of Earth. They developed the basis for a variety of doctrines ~ check out angels, demons, etc.

It's all there. And as a "separate creation".

If I substitute "Martian" for "angel" the arguments are the same.

[BrandtMichaels]

You have still failed to backup your assertations - please simply state what extremes of heat and cold they can endure. I seriously doubt they can survive the extremes temperature fluctuations required for space travel.

[chuck_the_tv_out]

Are you stupid? I said I will not argue this, so why reply? {{argument follows}}

Right. Don't claim to be an agnostic sitting on the wall when you are clearly a dyed in the wool evo.

[yankeedame]

Your post put me in mind of a story I heard many,many moons ago. It may be apocryphal, but still cute:

Dr. Werhner von Braun was given a public lecture about the earth, and outter space, and so on. Afterwords, a little old lady comes up and tells him that he didn't fool her. She knows the earth don't go around the sun, but it rests on the back of a giant turtle.

"Really?" teased the amused von Braun. "and what does the turtle stand on?"

"Another turtle."

"Oh? And what does he stand on?"

The little old lady waved a grandmotherly finger at him. "Ah,ah,ah,Doctor,you can't trick me. Everybody knows it's turtles all the way to the bottom!"

[BrandtMichaels]

I regard the Catholic church and the Bible as 2 separate and distinct sources seeing as how the Catholic church leaders often change their ‘dogma’ over the centuries.

[GodGunsGuts]

==Also I’ve heard of no traditional religious response calling them a ‘separate creation’ - my Bible tells me that God created all creatures - great and small, visible and not visible to the naked eye.

Amen!

[muawiyah]

They do update "dogma" don't they. At the same time they haven't rewritten the Bible in many centuries.

However, they still provide the greater part of thoughts concerning the concept of "separate creation" and "beings not of this Earth".

[chuck_the_tv_out]

My thermodynamics lecturer told that one once. It was elephants though, but I thought Turtles was a bit more modern. The lecture was on entropy.

[muawiyah]

Our astronauts regularly withstand both the extreme cold of space and the extreme temperature of reentry.

I think it's beyond argument that with enough "insulation" it should be possible for other forms of life to do so, especially mindless, soulless, Godless, pitiful, helpless little ol' archaebacter that can live on rocks!

[yankeedame]

You can talk about this as science all you want but life from outerspace has not been observed....yet.

Those little critters still need certain conditions to support life - conditions that have not been proven for outer space...Our knowledge of those conditions, of course, being about as close to zero as one can get and still be a number.

[muawiyah]

And Luciver was “created” where?

[yankeedame]

The belief in angles, demons, etc. predicated the RCC time out of mind. What the RCC did was incorporate, and thus discipline and control, these ageless beliefs/fears.

[muawiyah]

Which is why the RCC materials on the subject are relevant here. From the beginning the foundational church for so much of modern Christian presence in this world carved out a moral standard for judging alien beings.

They did not reject out of hand the idea that God in His wisdom would and could create others somehow somewhere.

Pretty advanced thinking ~ and in the Middle Ages many of the residents of monasteries had plenty of time to think about the subject.

[aft_lizard]

That is faith, not science at any level.

[aft_lizard]

I am not agnostic, nor will I let my faith be defined by someone like you. My belief in certain aspects of both ID and Evolution does not make me died in the wool of either. You may not like it but it is better to have an open and independent mind than to search for answers in one dark corner.

[muawiyah]

Could be ~ but you miss the point don't you. It's the fact that Genesis (the touchstone for the Creationists) has TWO DIFFERENT CREATION STORIES. THere's the "Let there be light" event and the "planted a garden in Eden" event.

The implications are truly profound, with the second story actually challenging most of the doctrines the Creos try to pull out of the first creation event.

God Himself planted a garden ~ think about that ~ the plants already existed ~ He planted them.

So, logical question, where were the plants before they got planted?

The Evos would like to link with warm pools filled with chemicals that simply self-assemble into a highly sophisticated single celled critter that can go through paroxysms of joy and gyration for the eons and poop up advanced forms.

I think it's all far more complicated than that, and that it's only a matter of time until we locate the tiny nano-particle sized super computers whose structures occur within the strands of our DNA. Supplemental redesigns may have occurred over time ~ with "time" being far longer than a mere 13 billion years.

[count-your-change]

Not only was the question of the origin of life ‘vexing’ to Darwinists it was very much on their minds.
Like the question of the origin of the universe is part of astronomy so too origin of life questions are a part of Darwinism.

In fact, Thomas Huxley's famous essay on life's origins show just how important a part of evolutionary theory the question is.

Said Huxley (in part:

“And looking back through the prodigious vista of the past, I find no record of the commencement of life, and therefore I am devoid of any means of forming a definite conclusion as to the conditions of its appearance. Belief, in the scientific sense of the word, is a serious matter, and needs strong foundations. To say, therefore, in the admitted absence of evidence, that I have any belief as to the mode in which the existing forms of life have originated, would be using words in a wrong sense. But expectation is permissible where belief is not; and if it were given me to look beyond the abyss of geologically recorded time to the still more remote period when the earth was passing through physical and chemical conditions, which it can no more see again than a man can recall his infancy, I should expect to be a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter. I should expect to see it appear under forms of great simplicity, endowed, like existing fungi, with the power of determining the formation of new protoplasm from such matters as ammonium carbonates, oxalates and tartrates, alkaline and earthy phosphates, and water, without the aid of light. That is the expectation to which analogical reasoning leads me; but I beg you once more to recollect that I have no right to call my opinion anything but an act of philosophical faith.”
(Biogenesis and Abiogenesis 1870 Essay)

Huxley was well thought of by Darwin for his zeal in propagating the “Gospel” of evolution so when Huxley speaks of the ‘evolution of life from non-living matter’ he speaks
like a high priest in The Temple of Darwinism.

Now as then, life from inert matter is an “act of philosophical faith”.