Likelihood of abiogenesis considering environment

Debate Room
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Ok, there are a ot of fallacies here.

When you mention entropy precluding life starting without God, I assume you mean that order cannot come from disorder.

Instead of life, let’s considser a stove, with saucepan of boiling water that has a lot of dissolved sugar in it.

If I turn off the heat and I put a wooden popsicle stick in this solution, the sugar will crystalize on the stick, and we now have rock candy.

These sugar crystals are very orderly, as the molecules are arranged in very nice, neat, repeating rows.

This means that there are times when order can come from disorder. Rock candy does not violate entropy, because entropy applies to a closed system.

In the formation of life, the organization represented by life is at the expense of even more disorganization elsewhere. The Sun (for example), has become more disorderly in provding light to Earth, and this energy from the Sun has played a crucial role in creating life.

In other words, the order represented by life is at the expense of an even greater disorder that exists in the Sun.

Chemicals crucial to life that have been created in the lab are no different than chemicals created in living organisms. Epinephrine (adrenalin) that is created in the lab is no different that the adrenalin that is created in the human body. When it’s injected, the human body doesn’t know the difference, so I’m not sure what you mean by “lifeless DNA.” If DNA is created in the lab (Which I haven’t heard of, although the components of DNA, such as nucleotides have been brewed up in the lab. I assume that this is what you mean.), it would act the same as DNA in living tissue.

Another fallacy is that God must be required for things that we can’t do in a lab.

In my mind, we shouldn’t automatically invoke God just because we’re unhappy that we don’t know everything. We haven’t made life in the lab yet, but we probably will later if we give this goal enough time, patience, and hard work. As a rough guess, if we assume that there are maybe 8 steps between lifeless chemicals and a living microbe, we have made perhaps 3 of these steps in the lab already.

I predict that religious people will protest on the day that a scientst starts with inert chemicals and ends up having something crawl out of a jar, but ceating life in a lab will have tremendous value in understanding things like cancer and ageing.

The idea that God is required for life seems like common sense, and here is where I believe a major disconnect occurs between theist and atheist.

Common sense is important, but it isn’t a fundamental form of absolute wisdom.

As an example, it seems like common sense that the Earth is at the center of the Universe. All we have to do is go outside at night and watch the sky turn around us . . . yet the Earth is not the center of the Universe even though it seems like it.

Abiogenesis is like this.

As for life not forming because “everything will be toxic”, toxicity (or poison) is a matter of context.

There are microbes (called extremophiles) that thrive in toxic environments like hot springs with concentrated sulfur compounds, or other environments that are much saltier than the ocean.

Salt water is toxic to people if we drink enough of it, yet dolphins and whales live in it just fine.

As for The Bible being a source of absolute truth, in 2 Chronicles we see that The Bible considers pi (the ratio of a circle’s circumference to it’s diameter) to be exactly 3, which is quite wrong.

We might dismiss this by saying that The Bible isn’t a mathematics textbook, and I agree.

However, this also means that The Bible isn’t a biology textbook, or a textbook on physics, chemstry, or astronomy either.

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You mean dirt/dust? The building block of life (with a little holy wind :dash:)

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Sure.

I’m sympathetic to people like Lukang, as I was similar to him at one point in my life. It took a lot of hard work, and it was quite frightening to reject religion.

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Good example, and worthy of note is that even if this were not true, that order could never come from disorder, this would demand an explanation, but would not in any way evidence any deity or anything supernatural. the addition of which is not only unevidenced superstitious assumption, it has no explanatory powers whatsoever.

Exactly, unevidenced assumptions about any deity add nothing.

Though of course this is precisely what religions do, and were probably for, a placeholder for things we don’t understand, no more relevant to the origins of life and the universe now, than witch doctors and shamans are needed to “explain” that measles is caused by a curse or witchcraft.

Fair point, it is easy to see the facts and get frustrated when others don’t or won’t grasp them.

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Believe? Why would you believe in abiogenesis? What else have you got? It is the only theory that takes into account the majority of the facts and explains them. Of all the possible theories, this one is currently standing out as the best. Perhaps you are using ‘Belief’ incorrectly. You quite possibly have that ‘Theistic’ all or nothing ‘Belief Bullshit’ clouding your mind.

Belief is on a sliding scale. People believe things in accordance with the evidence provided. In 1953 American chemists Harold C. Urey and Stanley Miller tested the Oparin-Haldane theory and successfully produced organic molecules from some of the inorganic components thought to have been present on prebiotic Earth. This became known as the Miller-Urey experiment. Modern abiogenesis hypotheses are based largely on the same principles as the Oparin-Haldane theory and the Miller-Urey experiment. Subtle differences exist, however, between the several models that have been set forth, and explanations differ as to whether complex organic molecules first became self-replicating entities lacking metabolic functions or first became metabolizing protocells that then developed the ability to self-replicate.

So we know that the complex molecules of life can form from inorganic matter. Can you think of another way to get organic matter? Do you imagine you could, for example, pray for it to appear in an empty jar?

Please share any alternative way you can get the elements of living matter from inorganic material.
Perhaps you could take an empty jar and pray at it real hard? Provide me with any method for creating the elements of life that can be, validated, studied, quantified, examined and repeated. Anything at all, and I will believe in abiogenesis less… Now, mind you…I am not unconvinced that panspermia is not a thing. The elements for life are also found on asteroids. " Two chemical compounds necessary to living organisms have been found in material from the asteroid Ryugu."

Why do people believe it? It’s the best we have. Do you have something better? I would love to hear about your amazing idea and all the facts and evidence supporting it. Please share. Seriously, if you have something better, please share.

And back to this belief thing… Skeptics don’t hold this ‘Theistic Bullshit’ view of belief that you do. Abiogenises is only held true to the degree that it can be held true and no further. That means it is the best possible explanation we currently have. Not that it is the one True explanation. The only people with the one true explanation are the theists out there with their gods of the gaps, and knowledge about infinite regressions being impossible.

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I see the in tray is full again …

First, the short response to your post … HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

Now, I’ll cover in detail below, why I responded in that manner. Strap yourself in, Looby Loo, you’re in for a hard ride.

No kidding? I see this all the time from mythology fanboys.

This isn’t a matter of “belief”, it’s a matter of evidentially supported postulates. In support of that statement, I point you at this thread I devoted to the subject. If you’re going to apply proper due diligence to the topic, you will not only READ the opening post therein in full (slowly if need be), but take note of the eighty two peer reviewed scientific papers I cite in the References section, chase down all of the papers referenced therein, and read the contents thereof. That exercise should take you about a month or so to complete properly. At the end, you’ll understand why I regard your post with unconcealed scorn and derision.

Ahem, by definition, the Earth wasn’t “hostile to life” when the chemistry covered above was taking place.

Apparently you were incapable of working out for yourself, that once life emerged, it would mop up as nutrients any relevant molecules that appeared after said emergence. But I’m used to seeing such elementary failures on the part of mythology fanboys.

WRONG. See that post I linked to above, and the 82 scientific papers referenced therein.

Er, bullshit.

First of all, researchers in prebiotic chemistry propose, on the basis of relevant laboratory experiments, that numerous different nucleic acid molecules were present once the relevant chemistry was initiated. Key among these being RNA, and indeed, the “RNA World” hypothesis has been a mainstream part of prebiotic chemistry research for decades.

Even better, scientists have demonstrated in laboratory experiments, not only that RNA molecules are active in a wide range of chemical reactions (look up ‘ribozyms’ and ‘aptazymes’ for two entire classes of such reactions), but have also engaged in self-replication in the laboratory. Indeed, I cite among those papers in my post, numerous papers documenting experiments in which RNA strands not only self-replicated, but underwent Darwinian evolution. A team of Japanese scientists published four such papers recently, demonstrating that their RNA strands generated a molecular ecosystem via Darwinian evolution.

Oh, and as for your farcicial resurrection of the “dead chemicals” apologetic bullshit so beloved by creationist masturbation fantasists, you are made of dead chemicals. Indeed, ALL of the molecules in your food constitute “dead chemicals” when you consume them, especially if they’re part of a cooked meal.

Moreover, I can provide you, by way of experiment, with two samples of, for example, glucose, one synthesised from bench reagents in a laboratory, the other extracted from my blood and purified. You will NOT be able to tell the difference between the two samples by visual inspection alone, and even some sophisticated chemical tests involving isotope fractionation may not easily distinguish them. Learn once and for all, that vitalism was killed stone deaf by Wöhler in 1828, when he launched organic chemistry as a scientific discipline in its own right.

Indeed, my comment about you being incapable of distinguishing between laboratory synthesised molecules, and molecules extracted from a living organism, applies to them all.

Fatuous drivel. Those scientific papers and their contents are laughing at you. Not least because, wait for it, prebiotic chemistry research has moved on to experiments with synthetic model protocells. I cited no less than fifteen scientific papers covering relevant research in this vein, and dozens more are available if you search the relevant repositories. Indeed, I linked to three such repositories in that post. Exercise some diligence and search them.

Again, total and utter poppycock. READ those 82 scientific papers, and learn why your assertion is bullshit.

CITATION for this? I want the full citation for this alleged “research”, including paper title, list of authors, journal in which it was published, date of publication, issue number and page numbers, as I’ve provided for all of my references in that other post. Unless you can deliver on this front, I’ll assume you’re lying.

Again, bullshit.

Oh wait, one of the scientific papers I’ve covered elsewhere on the subject of lipids, demonstrates that when lipids self-assemble into structures such as micelles, bilayer sheets and liposomes, entropy actually increases and drives forward the self-assembly.

Oh, and creationist canards about entropy and the laws of thermodynamics I deal with at length in this post, courtesy of an extensive document hosted on Google Docs. The requisite creationist lies are covered under Canard #28.

No it isn’t. This is why we pay scientists to research the relevant topics. Because frequently, the operation of testable natural processes turns out to be counter-intuitive.

Bullshit.

“Magic Man did it” is a blind assertion, with ZERO evidential support. It’s the refuge of the wilfully ignorant and the intellectually indolent.

No it isn’t. It’s a natural process amenable to scientific investigation. See above.

Yawn.

No it isn’t. Grow up.

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Yes, you are.
You have latched onto fantasy stories to answer unanswered questions you have, most of which could be addressed with even a modest pursuit of demonstrable facts. (@Calilasseia is always happy to oblige) Additionally, you have succumbed to the fallacy of attaching an answer, any answer, to ameliorate your anxiety caused from your inability to accept the limitations of your education and “knowledge”.
Your absurd declarations such as

Or

Or

All demonstrate the breathtaking magnitude of your self-deluded and arrogant “thinking”.

Finally, as icing on your fantasy cake, you twist yourself into a fleshy pretzel to interpret goat-herder scribblings to mean what you have already decided to be the “real meaning”.
So yes, I agree wholeheartedly, you are very
confused.

Edit to add more metaphors to the blender

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Meanwhile, moving on to this steaming pile of preachy bollocks …

A fictional entity.

How do I know this?

Because the mythology containing the assertion that this entity exists, also contains assertions about the natural world, that are known not merely to be wrong, but fatuous and absurd. Such as the whole Genesis “creation myth”, the diseased “global flood” fantasy, and that excremental nonsense about genetics being purportedly controlled by coloured sticks.

NO genuinely existing god type entity would allow itself to be associated with drivel of this sort.

Oh good grief, 10th century superstition rears its ugly head.

There’s no such thing as “demonic”, this is another risible mythology fanboy fantasy.

Another purely fictional entity …

Mythological fantasy and nothing else.

This is the plot of Milton’s Paradise Lost, and appears nowhere in your mythology.

No it isn’t. I suspect adherents of, say, Buddhism or Hinduism will be queueing up to correct you on this.

Drivel.

Your treatment of mythological fantasy as fact is infantile.

Again, more blind mythological assertion.

Quite finished with this acid trip foray into the realm of diseased imaginings?

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Based on @Lukang’s prior posting behavior, it appears s/he is a hit and run driver. @Lukang demonstrates no inclination for honest debate.
Here’s hoping others will benefit from the well reasoned, supported, generous responses likely gone unread/unconsidered by the OP.

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This individual almost certainly will not rise to the challenges I posed. Fortunately, others here have exercised enough due diligence to sweep away the canards, even if they haven’t acquired the in-depth technical expertise of the authors of the papers I’ve cited.

By the way, if @Lukang thinks the early Earth was “hostile to life”, he’s going to get a big shock when he learns that scientists have found key organic molecules being synthesised in interstellar space …

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There isn’t any apocalyptic ending to the earth by imaginary bullshit and this life and this world is what he/she is stuck with. After that :woman_shrugging:t2: recycled atoms.

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Then I’m guessing you don’t understand entropy, it is a very subtle concept.
I’ll give you a little test you can grade yourself. Here are the 2 extremely simple questions:

  1. Write down an example of a measure of speed:
  2. Write down an example of a measure of entropy:

For speed;

Answers

if you wrote anything other than a number times a fraction composed of a length divided by a time; then you don’t know understand speed. Some examples: 55 miles/hour, 30 kph, 5 feet per second, etc.

For entropy:

Answers

if you wrote anything other than a number times a fraction composed of an energy divided by a temperature; then you don’t understand entropy. Example: 5 joules/kelvin

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I never said chemical evolution wasn’t capable of creating order of any kind. It can, a snow flake is an example of this. Tour problem comes when we discuss life. Even if everything did come together to create a cell, we are talking about dead matter. It’s the Frankenstein experiment over and over again. The Bible calls it the breath of life, something God is only capable of creating. Man does not possess such an ability. Even if you could construct a whole human being from dead matter in a lab, it will never have life. None of you will ever understand anything regarding the spiritual realm unfortunately, but you will. There won’t be any atheists after the true antichrist comes. The God that proves himself with miracles will be here on the planer, and his doctrine will be extremely convincing. I wish you guys didn’t see this as mythology. There isn’t anyone talking on here and responding, laughing or not, that shouldn’t go to heaven. I understand I’m talking from a different world view, but if I’m right, you do need a savior. Please, if anyone has any issues that are reasons they don’t wish to give Jesus a chance, email me for a private conversation. Lukew0480@gmail.com I’m not on here to annoy you. You all matter.

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I don’t think we matter to you. I think only our dis/agreement matters to you.

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That is a common strawman, but continue:

The plants in my yard make matter I would call living, out of matter that I would call dead. Also there is no measurable difference between a hydrogen atom in a water molecule of something that is dead; vs a hydrogen atom in a water molecule of something that is alive. We don’t need some magical transform to turn one into the other as they are already the same.

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Well IF that day comes I will certainly believe. Until then; why should I believe your magical claims V.S. the magical claims of others? Shouldn’t I just reject magical claims until such time as you describe? Doesn’t that seem like a reasonable decision?

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There are many fallacies here, so I’ll try to explain.

Life is a chemical process.

My body loses water all of the time, so I replace it with new water when I drink. This also applies to almost every other substance in my body.

Over time, my body becomes composed of new molecules that have replaced old molecules. I can do this even though I’m eating dead things.

If there was some magic breath of life, it would gradually drain away as the substances of my body are replaced.

Or I should be expected to eat living things to replace the lost breath of life, yet I’m fine even though I don’t eat live animals.

If there was a breath of life, then what happens to it if I freeze a tissue (or sperm, or ova) for a long time . . . often years. These cells are living and viable as soon as they’re thawed out. What happened to the breath of life in the meantime? Was God’s breath of life frozen, too? That doesn’t seem likely to me.

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This is absolute nonsense. This discussion has been in reference to the origin of life. Whether God or it came to life on its own.

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It seemed you were appealing to the difference between living and dead matter. I was explaining that there is no (known) measurable difference between them. I’m recommending that you avoid appealing to things we can’t be sure even exist; because you are never going to convince a skeptic that way. You need to produce measurable results to do that (for example: telling us how to measure the difference between a living and dead atom, and perhaps some sample data).

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Sure, you bet…keep telling yourself this nonsense. At the moment just preceding your taking of your last breath, you will realize what Peggy Lee was referring to…

Hahaha…well I guess we’ll just have to have faith that you are being truthful…

Edit to put on a different record