How did life begin?

[Willd]

Before I start the main part of this post I'd just like to say a little something about where I'm coming from. I have been lurking this forum for a little while now and have made a couple of posts but this is my first post of any significant content.

I am a Christian and am currently an engineering student in Sheffield, England. I would like to think that in general I'm a logical person and up to now I have had no major problems with accepting Christianity as logical. There are certain aspects that I'm unsure of but there have been other things I have experienced/seen happen that have made it seem illogical not to believe.

Anyway, enough about me and onto what I wanted to post about. I'm obviously familiar with the theory of evolution and how it postures that life evolved from single celled organisms and eventually led to what we have now (this is an area I am actually slightly unsure of what I think/believe but for now I'd rather it wasn't too involved in this thread). What I don't know so much about is an atheist viewpoint on how the very first life form was created.

From what I have read (admittedly a lot of biased material, but all with seemingly strong references) it seems that the chance of life occuring spontaneously is all but zero. There is the overused analogy of it being as likely as a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling a boeing 747 but from what I know that doesn't seem absurd. Life is immensely complex, far more so than a 747, requiring as many as 200 proteins each made up of a string of 100+ amino acids for even the simplest form of life.

What then is the atheist explanation for life on Earth? The only theory I've ever heard is panspermia which frankly seems slightly off the wall and in any case just shifts the problem to somewhere else in the universe. If you could give me any further insight as to current theories and any evidence for them that would be greatly appreciated.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
Before I start the main part of this post I'd just like to say a little something about where I'm coming from. I have been lurking this forum for a little while now and have made a couple of posts but this is my first post of any significant content.

I am a Christian and am currently an engineering student in Sheffield, England. I would like to think that in general I'm a logical person and up to now I have had no major problems with accepting Christianity as logical. There are certain aspects that I'm unsure of but there have been other things I have experienced/seen happen that have made it seem illogical not to believe.

Anyway, enough about me and onto what I wanted to post about. I'm obviously familiar with the theory of evolution and how it postures that life evolved from single celled organisms and eventually led to what we have now (this is an area I am actually slightly unsure of what I think/believe but for now I'd rather it wasn't too involved in this thread). What I don't know so much about is an atheist viewpoint on how the very first life form was created.

From what I have read (admittedly a lot of biased material, but all with seemingly strong references) it seems that the chance of life occuring spontaneously is all but zero. There is the overused analogy of it being as likely as a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling a boeing 747 but from what I know that doesn't seem absurd. Life is immensely complex, far more so than a 747, requiring as many as 200 proteins each made up of a string of 100+ amino acids for even the simplest form of life.

What then is the atheist explanation for life on Earth? The only theory I've ever heard is panspermia which frankly seems slightly off the wall and in any case just shifts the problem to somewhere else in the universe. If you could give me any further insight as to current theories and any evidence for them that would be greatly appreciated.

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Thats a terrible analogy, first off, although its not your fault for using it. Its very popular. Honestly, I don't think anyone, currently, is in a good position to postulate what the odds of the first life coming together randomly were. A few majors reasons for this: We don't REALLY know what conditions on Earth were like, then, and we don't really know what the first life form was. If the first life-form was an extremely simple version of RNA, or even simpler, some sort of silicon or inorganic replicator, then obviously the odds of this randomly occurring increase greatly. If the world just happened to be in a state that facilitated exactly this sort of random occurrence, our odds go way up again. I don't know very much about the actual science or data of abiogenesis (although I am under the assumption that there isn't much of it to know about) but, strictly logically speaking, the metaphor of a tornado in a junkyard is about as arbitrary as me saying the odds were about the same as flipping a coin and getting heads. The mathematics used to support the tornado metaphor are based on a whole host of assertions that have no support.

If the history of evolutionary discovery has taught us anything, the likely right answer is that some extremely gradual, slow process guided the development of the first life, in many stages that were themselves not extremely unlikely, possibly over millions of trials in which the failures were excluded. All of this is, of course, conjecture on my part.

[Prodigy54321]

I only want to make a couple comments..since I don't know much about this specifically..and I don't think that a whole lot is known about it anyway.

There is no "atheist viewpoint"...there may be a viewpoint that is what most atheists believe..probably because it logically follows when you don't shove a god in there, but atheism does not demand that you hold any "alternative" beliefs..alternative to religious beliefs that is.

I believe that the only thing that is necessary as a "first life form" is a replicator..from there, it seems that the evolution that we know is inevitable...

I don't know about the specific estimations of likelihood that something like this would be formed...but there are a couple things that I think should be considered...1) the nature of the situation we are talking about...for instance, conditions that this occurrence is dependent on may have been more ideal at other times..and 2) whether there are even "smaller" steps that replicators..prehaps there are other, more easily formed, things that would help to bring about a replicator..but again, I don't know enough about the subject to be confident that what I am saying is true...just some random thoughts

[Alex-db]

isn't this a good example of where agnosticism is perfectly correct, unlike over-polite fence sitting atheists talking about the Holy Trilogy.

I'm agnostic on this issue, I don't know the answer. That doesn't in any way suggest one of the popular religious mythologies might have as good a chance of being correct as anything else, btw (just common sense needed for that)

I think I'd be right in assuming most (all?) of the scientific community is currently agnostic on this, which is a hugely significant aspect if you have ever heard anyone suggest science is as faith based as religion.

[Piers]

Gradually developed over millions of years though trillions of random chemical reactions.

My guess is that given the initial starting conditions of the earth, the development of life in some form was either very likely or a virtual certainty. The basic building blocks might have need a lot of luck to get created by chance, but over many billions of years it becomes a virtual certainty. Roll the dice enough times and eventually they will all come up sixes.

Of course I might be misjudging this, but we are here and that has to count for something.

[vhawk01]

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isn't this a good example of where agnosticism is perfectly correct, unlike over-polite fence sitting atheists talking about the Holy Trilogy.

I'm agnostic on this issue, I don't know the answer. That doesn't in any way suggest one of the popular religious mythologies might have as good a chance of being correct as anything else, btw (just common sense needed for that)

I think I'd be right in assuming most (all?) of the scientific community is currently agnostic on this, which is a hugely significant aspect if you have ever heard anyone suggest science is as faith based as religion.

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Excellent post.

[madnak]

What vhawk and Alex said.

The plain and simple fact is that we don't know how life originated, and we don't know how likely it was. Some people have manipulated what limited data we have in an attempt to describe some "likelihood" of life occurring spontaneously, but it's all based on hot air. Not only have there been no mathematically and scientifically consistent conjectures, but it's not even possible to formulate such a conjecture yet.

What I'll say is that the main argument of the scientists is careful analysis and reasoned speculation, while the main argument of the creationists is that it doesn't seem intuitive. In these kinds of debates, the scientists almost always win - the workings of our universe are simply counterintuitive sometimes, especially when based on incomplete information.

[vhawk01]

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What vhawk and Alex said.

The plain and simple fact is that we don't know how life originated, and we don't know how likely it was. Some people have manipulated what limited data we have in an attempt to describe some "likelihood" of life occurring spontaneously, but it's all based on hot air. Not only have there been no mathematically and scientifically consistent conjectures, but it's not even possible to formulate such a conjecture yet.

What I'll say is that the main argument of the scientists is careful analysis and reasoned speculation, while the main argument of the creationists is that it doesn't seem intuitive. In these kinds of debates, the scientists almost always win - the workings of our universe are simply counterintuitive sometimes, especially when based on incomplete information.

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It is really amazing to me that people still consider 'counterintuitive' to be a valid criticism of any sort of explanation. Haven't the last hundred years or so of evolutionary biology given us a pretty decent understanding of exactly how counterintuitive reality can be, and exactly WHY so many things are counterintuitive? Is this just a harkening back to the good old days of mathematical discovery, where the best proofs were always intuitive and elegant and beautiful?

And it also sort of exposes peoples misunderstanding of what 'intuitive' really means. There are probably hundreds of papers that instantly make intuitive sense to Boro or Rduke about their respective subjects that seem counterintuitive to me. Once fully explained, this disappears. Counterintuitive is really just another way of saying "I am currently pretty ignorant about this." It probably works as a general, practical rule for getting through your day, but it has a dodgy track record in sussing out truth.

[Pauwl]

I think there was a couple possible scenarios listed in The Blind Watchmaker that were really basic replicators. I think crystals was one of them.

btw, the primordial ooze theory was proven to be false, wasn't it?

[SitNHit]

Your a Christian? How stupid are you, don't you know thats impossible and the existance of God hasnt been proven.

I for one and smart enough to know that cause its not be proven its not possible.

Of course the universe just started out of nowhere and there was nothing before it, thats the only logical explanation. Lots of randoms and monkeys, etc.

Big Bang Boom = Universe