Abiogenesis - Page 5

InTheDark · #41 10-03-2007, 07:54 PM

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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.

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This is akin to saying that you are unable to present me with a deck of cards ordered the same as the one I hold in my hand. Maybe you get lucky but it's like 10^68 to 1 against.

We have some very powerful tools which are now focused on this issue. I would venture a guess that whatever the odds are against random abiogenesis, our focus improves our chances maybe 20 to 40 orders of magnitude. Is that enough? If abiogenesis is the nearly unique longshot I suspect it to be then it will never be enough.

More exrtaterrestrial data points please or an extra-solar video of the bar in Star Wars.

bunny · #42 10-03-2007, 08:11 PM

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We have some very powerful tools which are now focused on this issue.

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This has been what piqued my interest since you raised it and I've been asking around. I havent been able to find anyone who is aware of any active research in this area - ie in duplicating the feat rather than in studying extremophiles, etcetera for clues as to how it may have happened. What makes you think people are even trying to repeat it?

InTheDark · #43 10-03-2007, 08:25 PM

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We have some very powerful tools which are now focused on this issue.

[/ QUOTE ]
This has been what piqued my interest since you raised it and I've been asking around. I havent been able to find anyone who is aware of any active research in this area - ie in duplicating the feat rather than in studying extremophiles, etcetera for clues as to how it may have happened. What makes you think people are even trying to repeat it?

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Just strikes me that every advance in genetics and biology offers a little more leverage. I have no doubt that Dr Ahab somewhere is tracking this whale and he's likely not alone.

bunny · #44 10-03-2007, 08:29 PM

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We have some very powerful tools which are now focused on this issue.

[/ QUOTE ]
This has been what piqued my interest since you raised it and I've been asking around. I havent been able to find anyone who is aware of any active research in this area - ie in duplicating the feat rather than in studying extremophiles, etcetera for clues as to how it may have happened. What makes you think people are even trying to repeat it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Just strikes me that every advance in genetics and biology offers a little more leverage. I have no doubt that Dr Ahab somewhere is tracking this whale and he's likely not alone.

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I agree there is research into abiogenesis. I just havent found any examples of someone actually trying to replicate it - more studying the world to find further clues as to how (and if) it happened. If Ahab is some guy in a backyard lab experimenting on the weekend, then whatever he's using is probably a long way behind our cutting edge technology.

vhawk01 · #45 10-03-2007, 08:37 PM

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[ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is akin to saying that you are unable to present me with a deck of cards ordered the same as the one I hold in my hand. Maybe you get lucky but it's like 10^68 to 1 against.

We have some very powerful tools which are now focused on this issue. I would venture a guess that whatever the odds are against random abiogenesis, our focus improves our chances maybe 20 to 40 orders of magnitude. Is that enough? If abiogenesis is the nearly unique longshot I suspect it to be then it will never be enough.

More exrtaterrestrial data points please or an extra-solar video of the bar in Star Wars.

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Its not analogous to that at all. I can set the deck however I want to recreate the specific combination you have in mind. I cannot, currently, frost your glass in just such a way to recreate the exact frost pattern you have. You are saying that in one case this is acceptable and in one case it demonstrates that the phenomenon doesn't exist. So, card randomization exists, but frost randomization doesn't. The frosted mug is a myth/created by god.

vhawk01 · #46 10-03-2007, 08:38 PM

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
We have some very powerful tools which are now focused on this issue.

[/ QUOTE ]
This has been what piqued my interest since you raised it and I've been asking around. I havent been able to find anyone who is aware of any active research in this area - ie in duplicating the feat rather than in studying extremophiles, etcetera for clues as to how it may have happened. What makes you think people are even trying to repeat it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Just strikes me that every advance in genetics and biology offers a little more leverage. I have no doubt that Dr Ahab somewhere is tracking this whale and he's likely not alone.

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Mind Googling him for us? Or telling us what all these powerful tools are that allow us to recreate something we don't understand?

CORed · #47 10-04-2007, 02:06 PM

Abiogenesis is a favorite point of attack for creationists, IDers, etc. I'm not sure if this is what OP is doing or not, but this is not without some reason. The truth is, we have absolutely know idea how it happened. It's not hard to create the basic chemical building blocks for live: Amino acids, simple sugars, nucleotides, phospholipids, etc. can form under a variety of conditions. Amino acids have even been found in carbonaceous chondrites, if I am not mistaken. A little more manipulation can give us simple polypeptides, nucleic acids, etc. Phospholipids will self-assemble into a membrane much like a cell membrane. However, none of these things really come close to being alive, however we might define that term. It's awfully tempting to invoke devine intervention here.

However, scientific progress doesn't come from giving up on the tough questions and saying. "God performed a miracle". If it did, we would be trying to improve the performance of internal compustion engines (if we even had them) by making the gasoline release its phlogiston faster.

tpir · #48 10-04-2007, 02:13 PM

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Just strikes me that every advance in genetics and biology offers a little more leverage. I have no doubt that Dr Ahab somewhere is tracking this whale and he's likely not alone.

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Riiight. So can I count this as an admission that you are making stuff up so you have an excuse to make your point? (And making it poorly I might add.)

luckyme · #49 10-04-2007, 02:17 PM

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Just strikes me that every advance in genetics and biology offers a little more leverage. I have no doubt that Dr Ahab somewhere is tracking this whale and he's likely not alone.

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A large dose of doubt goes a long way in preventing one from becoming mind-bound to unfounded beliefs. 'no doubt' is like a super brain-freeze.

luckyme

chezlaw · #50 10-04-2007, 02:32 PM

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Just strikes me that every advance in genetics and biology offers a little more leverage. I have no doubt that Dr Ahab somewhere is tracking this whale and he's likely not alone.

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Riiight. So can I count this as an admission that you are making stuff up so you have an excuse to make your point? (And making it poorly I might add.)

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Its very hard to grasp the staggering timescales and parallelism involved, and that's for those of us who are trying to grasp it which the op clearly isn't.

Technology may be largly irrelevent except that maybe one day computers may be powerful enough to do useful simulations. The op's contention that a current lack of solving this problem is significant is the same old silly old.

chez