Abiogenesis

[joes28]

I believe Lisa Simpson has accomplished this already.

[Justin A]

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I dont think it was because "we should have created life in the lab, given the power of our technology," do you?


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I think it was because they both realized 14 by isn't near enough time according to probability calculations. 14 gazillion is way too short.

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Apparently you've left this forum, according to your response to mine in another thread, but I'll continue on nonetheless.

These time spans you're speaking of are only too short when speaking of randomly coming up with the most basic cells we know of today. This doesn't account for previous 'life' forms that may have preceded DNA/RNA based life forms. So the assumption that 40 million years is too short for life to have arisen simply presumes that the first life forms were of the same basic structure as we see today. It's entirely possible that DNA/RNA replication replaced earlier forms of replicators that were much simpler and less efficient.

[CORed]

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There must be some level of technology where our failure to create life allows us to also reject the abiogenesis hypothesis. Again, I think we're close to this level of technology.

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No, there really isn't. It is arrogant and logically unsupportable to say, we can't duplicate it, so it couldn't possibly have happened. for one thing, abiogenesis could have taken hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. To assume that we can duplicate every possible scenario that could have led to abiogenesis is silly. We really can't be absolutely certain that it happened on earth. It is entirely possible, though fairly unlikely, that life originated elsewhere. We can't rule out panspermia, or the Lost Lunch Hypothesis (Intelligent extraterrestrials landed on earth 4 billion years ago. One of them lust his lunch, and the bacterial in it evolved into present day life on earth.)

[vhawk01]

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Even if we stipulate that T is a real and objective quantity of technology, why on earth would you think we're close? I would put us no closer than 1% of the way to T.

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The reason I believe we may be close to T is simply the event that we are looking to replicate was done at T=0, it was done by chance. We have so much available to us I'm surprised that we have not done it so far. This is forcing me to re-evaluate. I'd really like more extraterrestial data points.

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Did you entirely miss the "frost on the glass" analogy presented to you earlier? With all of our wonderful technology we could not reproduce the frost on my glass right now. Its theoretically possible to replicate, and someday we might be able to, but we can't right now. This failure troubles you? Give me a couple billion years and I'll replicate it for you, I promise. A peasant in 1300 could have done the same, regardless of technological advances. Maybe the technology has cut the reproduction timeframe in half.

[Noodles.]

Oh noes -- I am all but religious but I see a nice (anti-)similarity in the debates: This time the science side is saying "We cannot prove it, we are not able to see it happen, we have no real evidence, but we will never stop believing!", while the religious side is saying "There's no proof, and if there is no proof within the next 20 years I will not believe this!"

Great.

[luckyme]

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Oh noes -- I am all but religious but I see a nice (anti-)similarity in the debates: This time the science side is saying "We cannot prove it, we are not able to see it happen, we have no real evidence, but we will never stop believing!", while the religious side is saying "There's no proof, and if there is no proof within the next 20 years I will not believe this!"

Great.

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we will never stop believing!

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Believing what? that life appeared on earth?

luckyme

[luckyme]

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Oh noes -- I am all but religious but I see a nice (anti-)similarity in the debates: This time the science side is saying "We cannot prove it, we are not able to see it happen, we have no real evidence, but we will never stop believing!", while the religious side is saying "There's no proof, and if there is no proof within the next 20 years I will not believe this!"

Great.

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Ah. I see. You misunderstood the entire discussion.

ok. carry on.

luckyme

[madnak]

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Oh noes -- I am all but religious but I see a nice (anti-)similarity in the debates: This time the science side is saying "We cannot prove it, we are not able to see it happen, we have no real evidence, but we will never stop believing!"

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We will stop believing if it is falsified, or if a better hypothesis comes along. Some scientists don't believe in abiogenesis in the first place. This is not analogous to a theistic position.

[vhawk01]

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Oh noes -- I am all but religious but I see a nice (anti-)similarity in the debates: This time the science side is saying "We cannot prove it, we are not able to see it happen, we have no real evidence, but we will never stop believing!", while the religious side is saying "There's no proof, and if there is no proof within the next 20 years I will not believe this!"

Great.

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This suffers from the exact same problem that plagues all of these debates, IMO. Basically, the idea of conditional, provisional acceptance of something. The degree to which I accept the "truth" of abiogenesis is very small. If I were forced to base any predictions or real-world applications on the ideas in abiogenesis, I would be VERY cautious, and I would expect failure. I wouldn't wager any kind of significant money on it, for example.

But there aren't any better theories. Panspermia fails for the same reason Goddidit fails. They have no explanatory power. They have no predictive power. But the minute someone comes up with a better theory, I have absolutely no qualms with tossing abiogenesis out the window. There is no timeframe on this, though. I will continue "believing" in abiogenesis until something better comes along. But we should be putting "believe in abiogenesis" in like size 4 font, and "believe in evoltuion" in like size 72 font. If you get what I'm saying.

[luckyme]

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Oh noes -- I am all but religious but I see a nice (anti-)similarity in the debates: This time the science side is saying "We cannot prove it, we are not able to see it happen, we have no real evidence, but we will never stop believing!"

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We will stop believing if it is falsified, or if a better hypothesis comes along. Some scientists don't believe in abiogenesis in the first place. This is not analogous to a theistic position.

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When I first responded to 'noodles', it was my typical knee-jerk "now, what the hell is somebody telling me I believe in." one. As her post sunk in, I realized she had no clue what the thread involved.

There is life on earth.
It has a history.
Everything points to a common source ( at this time). Abiogenesis is the leading contender, for good reason. It is not the only contender. Mars and some moons may help decide aspects of the issue.

That man couldn't fly for 1,000,000 years hardly disproved that flight was possible. It's an insane way of looking at a subject. Failing attempts are often what move you toward an answer, not father away.

I don't believe abiogenesis now, I won't believe it when it's validated, it'll just move higher up the 'best so far' category.

luckyme