New Chemical Scenario For How Life Emerged On Earth

UniSci ^ | 20 June 2002

[sourcery]

FYI

[joesnuffy]

Its amazing how wonderfully complex life is and yet so undirected -it spontaneously arrose and began organizing...randomness giving rise to the ultimate in complexity...and all of this without any outside creative directing force. The finished creation having invented itself..
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA ... Lord you and I know its all your handiwork and even the chemical reactions of the brains that take this tripe for truth.. Thanks Lord think I will go out and enjoy what it is you and you alone have made for us...

[balrog666]

Very interesting.

[RightWhale]

You got your carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and a few other conditions and hit it with an energy source --could be almost anything, a lightning storm-- and let the stuff sit around and all kinds of things, most of them gooey and unattractive, start growing. That part is not so hard to imagine. It's the intelligence thing that is baffling, the self-awareness, the gooey masses growing eyes and banging away at computer keyboards reporting what they see; that's the real mystery.

[John H K]

A heck of a lot can happen given 4 billion years, without an outside directing force. That's why the young earth folks used to be so fanatical (but, apparently, have finally given up); if the earth is 10,000 years old you don't have time for everything to happen.

But people simply can't wrap their mind around what a billion years means.

[LiteKeeper]

Statistically, the odds that the first cell self-generated are 1 in 10x57,000. Pretty tall odds for this young-earth creationist to accept. {Duck...incoming}

[LarryLied]

Always suspected I am a result of bacteria on primitive beaches rather than descended from apes.

[balrog666]

Statistically, the odds that the first cell self-generated are 1 in 10x57,000.

Gee, maybe that's why nobody said "cell". Of course, a posteri, it doesn't matter what the odds were!

[gcruse]

Great article. Thanks for posting.

[Junior]

Another gap slams shut.

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks for the ping. I donno how the creationism crowd is gonna take this news. First, lighting is found to have a natural cause. Then the sunrise. Then disease. Now this. It keeps getting harder and harder for the Genesis boys to hang in there. But they'll manage somehow.

[balrog666]

It keeps getting harder and harder for the Genesis boys to hang in there. But they'll manage somehow.

You need to remember the definition of "invincible ignorance".

I noticed OOBFOO-boy started doing it to himself! I wonder what that's a harbinger for?

[PatrickHenry]

I noticed OOBFOO-boy started doing it to himself! I wonder what that's a harbinger for?

It's hard to maintain a consistent position on anything when you refuse to adhere to the only possible standard of truth -- reality itself. Once you abandon that narrow road you're in the swamp, with only an occasional swami to guide you. And who knows where the swami's info comes from?

[AndrewC]

Another gap slams shut.

Yeah right!!!!

credulity

\Cre*du"li*ty\ (kr?-d?"l?-t?), n. [L. credulitas, fr. credulus: cf. F. cr['e]dulit['e]. See Credulous.] Readiness of belief; a disposition to believe on slight evidence.

That implict credulity is the mark of a feeble mind will not be disputed. --Sir W. Hamilton.

[Junior]

You'll never accept any evidence that goes against your worldview, will you?

[Junior]

This thread hasn't gotten much attention from the creos; I wonder if that is on purpose?

[AndrewC]

I just understand chemistry. Describe in your own terms what has been proven here.

[general_re]

Describe in your own terms what has been proven here.

"Proven"? Nothing, except that there is a plausible mechanism for abiogenesis. Whether or not this is actually what happened remains an open question at this point, but the discovery of a potential mechanism is significant in and of itself.

[Junior]

That the macro-molecular building blocks of life could have formed naturally and that abiogenesis may not be as impossible as creationists would have folks think. So, you're a chemist, huh?