abiogenesis

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abiogenesis

Postby gerren » Wed Oct 25, 2006 12:47 am

its obvious a God/creator exists, because life itself is not spontaneous. A person can take all of the conditions, 'ingredients", and other things needed for life to exist on a planet, but it just doesnt "happen" (the thought that life is spontaneous is called "abiogenesis"-and abiogenisis has been disproven). also, Judaism (the religion that would give rise to christianity) gave answers as well as the information about God that was very advanced and different from the other polytheistic religions of its time.

Split from "Does God exist?" by Pwrong
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Postby Nick » Wed Oct 25, 2006 2:08 am

"Things don't just happen".

Well, by your theory, God just happened, and then he created the Universe from nothing, meaning that the Universe also just happened. Besides, nothing from the scientific model of the universe says that anything needed to have just happened, anyway.

As for Judaism being advanced, it is most certainly not. It was strange and unique in comparison to other religions of the time, but not advanced by any means. You say that it "gives answers"? What proof, or reason, do you have to know that these answers are correct? Why not any other religion?

It seems to me like religion is nothing but bronze age myths created by the people to explain what could not be explained. Humans seem to have the misconception that everything in this Universe must have been intellegently designed in some way. Just because cars and computers were intellegently designed by humans, doesn't mean humans were also designed. And if we were, why would God go through such trouble to make us complex? If he could simply "magic" us into existence, why couldn't he make us incapable of harming ourselves, physically superior to all other animals (even the Bible says that God gave humans power over animals, but he doesn't seem to show it), incapable of being unhappy, and make our bodies much simpler in design? Our bodies are so complex that if any one thing goes awry, the rest of it fails. Any engineer can tell you that it's faulty design.
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Postby PWrong » Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:24 am

the thought that life is spontaneous is called "abiogenesis"

Abiogenesis is the generation of life from non-living matter. It doesn't have to be spontaneous.

Is this essentially your argument?:
1. Either life happened through abiogenesis or it was created by a God
2. Abiogenesis is impossible
3. Therefore life was created by God

1 & 2 implies 3, so your logic is ok. But your second premise is entirely unjustified. Abiogenesis is clearly not impossible. It's not uncommon for amino acids to form from simple chemicals. These amino acids are good at joining together into small proteins. All you need is one self-replicating molecule and you've got something that can evolve.
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Postby Nick » Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:00 pm

Nitrogen, Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Carbon are the four elements that can create life, right? :\
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Postby gerren » Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:38 pm

Yes, these are the elements that create amino acids for proteins as well as the carbohydrates for energy and life. That was an understatement. But what exactly brings life and intelligence to these "molecules". The elements and everything else are powerless to actually form bacteria, human beings, or intelligent beings, and that is where a God/Creator/Intelligent Being of a Higher Power comes into play. Abiogenesis. Abiogenesis.
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Postby gerren » Wed Oct 25, 2006 10:03 pm

As for Judaism being advanced, it is most certainly not

Actually, I said that the answers that Judaism gave for God's existence and the details of it were advanced. It is very true that Judaism was not a very advanced religion, but its peculiarity compared to other religions that worshipped gods who were for their everyday life as far as sports, food, and travel/trade was marvellous. Judaism's God was not one who was going to kill your crops if you didnt slit your wrist and give blood to him, and neither was he a god that needed constant attention or rituals/sacrifices to sustain his power. This was a god of love that was not of the universe (many other gods of the time had supposedly grown from out of a mountain; made people from water and maize; or some other ridiculous matter that was of this realm/dimension/universe), and one who only wanted your faith in him and his virtues. That would be your ticket to heaven.----sorry if that last line sounded toooooo scientifically "incorrect"
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Postby Nick » Thu Oct 26, 2006 1:54 am

Actually, the Bible says several times when God asks for burnt offerings and ritual sacrifices. As for the amino acids and such, have you taken biology yet? I had it last year, and I don't remember it too well... maybe PWrong can explain it to you ;)
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Postby gerren » Thu Oct 26, 2006 2:38 am

Actually, yes i am taking biology now, in my 9th grade year in an honors class. We can gone over amine groups and how it is a Nitrogen and 2 hydrogens combined to an R group. As far as the self replication process, I dont know too much about how it came to be in the first place besides God. Those molecules obviously didnt replicate themselves in the first place by chance did they? Enough replications to form an organism, correct? Intelligent life cannot pop up out of nowhere and form and organism of any sort. The chances of an organism being formed by chance and then coming to life and carrying out cellular respiration and other processes such as protein synthesis obviously dont happen in the beginning by chance, do they?
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Postby PWrong » Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:02 am

I don't know much biology or chemistry at all, but I am doing a unit on protein physics, and I have a general idea of what proteins and DNA are made of.

Those molecules obviously didnt replicate themselves in the first place by chance did they?

Yes, they did. If a bunch of amino acids join up in a certain way, they can form a self-replicating molecule. It's unlikely for any given bunch to do this, but if you have an entire planet full of amino acids, and millions of years to wait, it's almost inevitable.

Enough replications to form an organism, correct?

All you need is one self-replicating molecule. This splits into two self-replicating molecules, and soon you have hundreds. After that there's almost no chance involved. It takes a long time for these molecules to evolve into an organism, but it will almost always happen.

Intelligent life cannot pop up out of nowhere and form and organism of any sort.

Noone said it did. You should learn a bit more about evolution before attacking it.
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Postby gerren » Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:47 am

Can you tell me what a self replicating molecule would be made of (are they hydroxyl, carboxyl, amine, phosphorus, ketone, etc.)? Because many proteins are synthesised by living organisms, right? As far as chance, we are not discussing amine groups only are we? Arent we discussing a very complex molecule that wouldnt possibly be formed by chance? Millions of years is a lot of time, i will give you that, but to form an organism in the first place would be many different (self-replicating)molecules, and then the rna/mrna to know which ones to turn on and off for the organism? Am I jumping ahead in time too much? lol I have been debating this topic alll day and im soo tired, so i think ill go to sleep and continue this tomorrow. Thanks, you seem to be a very knowledgeable person
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Postby Nick » Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:03 pm

Actually, what PWrong is saying about them replicating has been proved. I remember watching a NOVA video where some scientists tried to emulate it and it finally happened after like a hundred tries. Pretty boring video, but proves our point nonetheless.
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Postby gerren » Thu Oct 26, 2006 10:39 pm

I have never said that what PWrong said was not true. I agreed with him on that topic, but the thing is that a self replicating molecule (which does not actually intelligently replicate itself unless it is DNA, mRNA, or RNA) from the "beginning of when self-replicating molecules occurred" is a molecule that is so easily formed by other elements that it occurrs so much it is called self replicating. My argument is that DNA, mRNA, and RNA are very complex molecules that could not have been formed without intelligent design. Also, the way these three self-replicating molecules (which are much different from when they first occurred) actually work together is too marvellous to have been created by evolution/chance over a period of millions of years. I am not saying that evolution did not give way to very complex organisms, but I am saying that just the starting self-replicating molecules could not give way to any of those three molecules.
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Postby Nick » Fri Oct 27, 2006 12:43 am

gerren, something complex certainly can happen without intellegent design. It's called Darwinian natural selection. You get to complex things by slow, gradual degrees over a long period of time.
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Postby gerren » Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:12 am

But to what extent can this happen? I am not speaking of evolution of birds, frogs, humans, or any matter of that sort (which i know actually happened), but i speak of when the first molecules were created and how they were created. We didnt get the first cell through Darwinian Selection did we? Darwinian Natural Selection has to do with organisms, which is far ahead in time in terms of what i am speaking of. As I said, no molecule that complex can be built of millions of years (especially a self replicating molecule as well as the three in our cells, which are a few of many more self replicating molecules
)
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Postby Nick » Fri Oct 27, 2006 10:15 pm

Yes, it can. It's called chemical reactions between Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen, to create basic living things. These basic living things (blt, lol) formed together to create cells.

^speculation. I don't actually know how it happened, only that it's possible.
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Postby gerren » Fri Oct 27, 2006 11:51 pm

You speak of all of these reactions as if its a simple thing, but it isnt. Look at the chemical structure of a self-replicating molecule. It is reactions between those molecules, but what if one molecule is in a spot it shouldnt? Then you wont have life, my friend.
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Postby PWrong » Sat Oct 28, 2006 10:11 am

You speak of all of these reactions as if its a simple thing, but it isnt. Look at the chemical structure of a self-replicating molecule. It is reactions between those molecules, but what if one molecule is in a spot it shouldnt? Then you wont have life, my friend.

I'm really not an expert on this, but I suppose before there were self replicating molecules, there were molecules that just build smaller molecules. These would be simpler than a self replicating molecule. Once you have a few of these, you start getting a huge variety of molecules. Most of these are useless, but can still be used as "food". Some of them will be able to build other molecules, and a few will be self-replicating.

Suppose you have a molecule that performs some function. Now if you add extra bits onto it, it might still work. You might end up with a huge molecule with just a small part that is actually useful. Now if you make changes to the molecule it will probably still work.

Life isn't as precise and fine-tuned as you might think. There's a huge amount of redundancy. That's why the vast majority of DNA is called "junk DNA".
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Postby Nick » Sat Oct 28, 2006 11:25 am

It most certainly is a simple thing. What your thinking is this: "All this complexity, in 0 seconds! OMG, there must be a god!". It actually becomes quite simple when you add time to the equation. Instead, it's all this complexity in 8 billion years.
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Postby gerren » Thu Nov 02, 2006 2:37 am

No, Im not thinking that. I believe the theory of evolution, but as I have said before, the chances of you getting a complex self replicating molecule that is the structure for life over 100 million years is extremely unlikely. Ask a biology/chemistry teacher or any educated teacher that has many years in the education "force" and they will tell you that. Also, the "junk DNA" theory that arose around 2003 was disproven, as its very important job is to make the mRNA and chaperone proteins in cell mitosis/regular cell processes-that right there was to PWrong (who is great :) )
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Postby Nick » Thu Nov 02, 2006 2:43 am

The Universe is a very large place, that has millions of planets, stars, and is constantly expanding. Eventually, we'll get life. A lot of Christians (I'm not saying you think this way, I've just heard this alot) use the argument "this planet is so perfect for life, we must have been created, it's just too much of a coincidence", when really life can only exist on this type of planet, and the odds of this type of planet NOT existing and life NOT forming on it after 8 billion years or so is very tiny.
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Postby gerren » Thu Nov 02, 2006 2:55 am

I dont use this argument due to the fact that if there are so many galaxies and stars out there (dont know how many, but there are a lot), then obviously there must be at least one planet that is perfect for the conditions needed for life to exist (think about that in bold), and i like to call that earth. Also, your time-table is totally off. Earth was only formed about 4.5 billion years ago, and you said that 8 billion was needed for life. So, scientists estimate that the first life began 3.9-3.5 MYA, so that would give around 650 million years for a complex self replicating molecule to appear, correct? If i was a moderately educated (im not saying you arent, because i know you are very educated), then i would accept the theory that this molecule would actually appear after so many years of chance creating it over that period of 650 MYA. I dont though because i know the nature of DNA and the simplest life creating molecule (which is very complex), and chance/evolution of molecules cannot do that at all.
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Postby PWrong » Thu Nov 02, 2006 2:59 am

the chances of you getting a complex self replicating molecule that is the structure for life

You don't need that at first. All you need is a molecule that can join up with amino acids, and that has bits that can break off. Then bits start breaking off, and you have a simple molecule that "eats" amino acids and builds other molecules. Now the structure of this molecule will change, and probably become more complex. It's not long before you have a simple self-replicating molecule. And once you have that you have everything.
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Postby gerren » Thu Nov 02, 2006 3:13 am

This molecule you speak of is not one that will actually create life. Check out the Miller Experiments (ok those experiments would support your ideals, but if you think about which molecules actually create life, then they totally do not serve as accomplices to your theory of the life-creating molecules), and they created 13 of the 25 amino acids that are needed for life by chance. It is all too obvious that after maybe after some time they would get a self-replicating molecule (when the conditions were right on earth the chance of you getting a self-replicating molecule were very high), but it would be a somewhat much simpler molecule than the one needed for life to exist.
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Postby PWrong » Thu Nov 02, 2006 3:29 am

it would be a somewhat much simpler molecule than the one needed for life to exist.

As long as it's self replicating, that's all you need. Once you have a self-replicating molecule, however simple, you soon have millions of them. Some of these are different from the original. Some are more complicated, and still able to self-replicate. Then you have evolution.
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Postby Nick » Thu Nov 02, 2006 11:18 am

Gerren, I think your thinking that the amino acids we had billions of years ago was as complex as they are now. They evolve too, you know.
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Postby PWrong » Thu Nov 02, 2006 1:40 pm

Actually they don't. There's only 20 standard amino acids, and they're just simple molecules. Amino acids join up with each other to make proteins. DNA is made of nucleotides, which I think are similar to amino acids. You don't actually need DNA for life, it just helps.
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Postby Nick » Thu Nov 02, 2006 9:47 pm

Sorry :( . I only took regular Biology last year.
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Postby gerren » Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:18 am

Actually, molecules dont "evolve". They are added on to by chance by bumping into other molecules and accumalating them until they become larger and larger.

I think your thinking that the amino acids we had billions of years ago was as complex as they are now


What??? amino acids are not complex at all. All they are are amine groups (nitrogen and 2 hydrogens), and an alpha carbon. Its the R group that makes them special, and can only usually be made by animals/plants/living organisms. As I have said before, evolution only begins to occur when you have a living organism, and we are talking about molecules before organisms.

DNA is made of nucleotides, which I think are similar to amino acids


A nucleotide is a bond (im pretty sure). So think of DNA, which has to be perfect or you wont get an organism or one so inefficient its chances of living would be so small that it wouldnt adapt to the environment. The amine groups and R groups are all so complex and so huge that if you got just one of them by chance then you would be extremely lucky. Now think of getting hundreds (there are much more than that but im using that estimate to be fair) of those R groups which are all different and getting them perfect. Your chances of that molecule (which would be fairly simple compared to DNA) decrease so much your chances of getting it are almost "impossible".
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