Hi delt,
Here are some good books about evolution:
As for your original question, no one yet knows exactly how the first life on earth developed. But that doesn’t contradict the fact of evolution. It means only that there are still new discoveries to be made in biology.
I hope this helps.
Hi there, time to jump in !
I was born in a Christian family and all of my family member are huge believers, later on, as a very curious person i made my research and while i dont really know if i am a christian, i am sure that i do believe in god !
These are some thing that i would like to resume :
From what i can observe one can be only born from something alive.
For me God is everything and eternal, so as he is from my point of view an eternal living being, we actualy live witthin the unstoppable source of life.
I think that even tho a new living entity pop up on any planet appears to be very unprobable, i think no odds can beat eternity. so yes even tho i believe in god that dosent change a fact that i can believe in scientific obsevation or theory !
In these kind of discussion between science and religion is a lot of people tend to dismiss one or another. Scientific tend to tell that those who do not believe in their theory are retarded while the other group often protect their belief by not approving to theories that could be veridic. Please do not fall in any category guys.
What i am trying to say is it is not a bad thing beliving in those two choice, and one does not dismiss the other.
It’s a category mistake to pit science against religion. They are fundamentally different activities. “Science wrong, because religion” is a nonsensical statement.
Scientists look for the causes of natural things in the things themselves. By definition, then, any supernatural explanations are off the table. To posit God as an explanation for anything in nature is simply unscientific. The theory that “God did it” doesn’t lead to any new, testable predictions, which is what science is all about. This doesn’t imply religion is wrong, but it does show that science and religion are incompatible with regards to any topic, such as the origin of life.
Interesting point, but personally i see evolutionism/atheism as nothing more than another religion. As i’ve debated above (although no one accepts it) the theory of evolution is a fabricated myth that got pushed into common belief because that’s what people want to believe. It’s not backed up by any science… at least not real, objective science.
Science is supposed to benefit humanity. What has evolutionism brought to humanity? Mostly, drastic erosion of moral values. Someone who thinks he’s nothing more than a mutated piece of amino acid that somehow invented itself, will in general show a lot less moral value in his behaviour, than someone who believes in a superior, intelligent designer behind the universe and life.
Interesting point, but personally i see evolutionism/atheism as nothing more than another religion. As i’ve debated above (although no one accepts it) the theory of evolution is a fabricated myth that got pushed into common belief because that’s what people want to believe. It’s not backed up by any science… at least not real, objective science.
Science is supposed to benefit humanity. What has evolutionism brought to humanity? Mostly, drastic erosion of moral values. Someone who thinks he’s nothing more than a mutated piece of amino acid that somehow invented itself, will in general show a lot less moral value in his behaviour, than someone who believes in a superior, intelligent designer behind the universe and life.
Atheism does not equal evolution. There are scientists who believe in God and study evolution. In fact, Theodosius Dobzhansky, one of the most famous evolutionary biologists of the 20th century, was deeply religious.
Dobzhansky wrote a famous essay titled “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.” In the essay, he writes:
“Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts… the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness.”
Evolution is backed up by overwhelming evidence. That’s why I linked to the books above. Here are two more:
You seem to be serious about exploring these issues, so I think you owe it to yourself to read at least one or two of these books. A book about evolution will give you a much more complete view than you can gather from a discussion on a music software forum.
There’s no evidence that an understanding of evolution leads to “an erosion of moral values.” Charles Darwin himself was an intensely moral man who was dedicated to his family and friends.
On the other hand, many atrocities, from the Spanish Inquisition to recent terrorist attacks, have been committed in the name of religion. So you can’t say atheism makes people bad or that religion makes people good. There are good and bad people on both sides.
…but personally i see evolutionism/atheism as nothing more than another religion.
As CG85 already poited out, atheism has nothing to do with evolution.
Another issue: atheism is not a belief that there is no god, it is a lackof faith in any sort of superior being altogether. Just like you can’t say that a person who doesn’t like to watch basketball games is a non-basketball-fan. He simply just isn’t a fan. no label.
[edit] fixedsome wording
“Ok, how did the first song pop into existence?” …so for those of you who believe in music theory, please explain this to me.
Conner, may I quote you on that? For me, that sums up this discussion pretty good.
Someone who thinks he’s nothing more than a mutated piece of amino acid that somehow invented itself, will in general show a lot_less_moral value in his behaviour, than someone who believes in a superior, intelligent designer behind the universe and life.
If you think about it, which of the two explanations is the most amazing one? I think it’s nice to think of your ancestors as having fought their way through impossible odds (edit: not to mention, the majority that didn’t make it). It actually makes me feel pretty humble to be here, now.
From that article:
After decades of trying, in 2009 researchers finally managed to generate RNA using chemicals that probably existed on the early Earth. Matthew Powner, now at University College London, and his colleagues synthesised two of the four nucleotides that make up RNA. Their achievement suggested that RNA may have formed spontaneously - powerful support for the idea that life began in an “RNA world”.
That’s like saying, “hey, we found two molecules of polycarbonate (the stuff that’s on the surface of CD’s) - which is ‘powerful support’ for the idea that a blank CD has formed spontaneously.”
RNA is required to make proteins. But proteins are also involved in the production of RNA. Any rational person can understand that either one of them can not just appear spontaneously, that’s physically and mathematically impossible. Yet, you’d need both at the same place & time, starting to somehow work together with countless other components for life to begin. Like the article says, it took trained chemists decades to form two molecules of RNA under human-controlled lab conditions.
Further down:
He [Christopher Switzer] says the story makes more sense if DNA nucleotides were naturally present in the environment. Organisms could have taken up and used them, later developing the tools to make their own DNA once it became clear how advantageous the molecule was - and once natural supplies began to run low.
This is pure speculation, and a pretty wild one at that. Natural selection is a non-guided, completely unintelligent process, therefore it can’t “plan ahead” or “make decisions” like Switzer describes. Even if the nucleotide molecules for building DNA were already present in the environment, and were absorbed by cells, what are the odds that they would just magically “combine” into DNA? We’re back at the same problem we had above with the “RNA soup”.
The original question, “How did the first living cell pop into existence?” is misleading. No scientist claims that complete living cells just “popped into existence,” in one step. As others have pointed out, evolution is a gradual, incremental process that has taken place over billions – that’s worth repeating – BILLIONS – of years. Over such a vast time scale, improbable events, such as the formation of replicating molecules, become much less improbable. Moreover, no one knows exactly what conditions were like on the early earth. The conditions may have been such that the formation of replicating molecules was not only probable, it was inevitable.
Natural selection is very much a guided process. That’s the “selection” part. The “natural” part is in contrast to artificial selection, which has given us German Shepherd dogs and bigger tomatoes, among other things. If humans can make all these different kinds of animals and plants in only a few generations, then imagine what nature can do over billions of years. Nature “selects” those organisms that survive long enough to successfully reproduce. The genes of these organisms then spread through the species population and eventually dominate that species’ gene pool. It’s such an obviously true idea as to be almost self-evident.
Also, natural selection is not the only mechanism driving evolution. Symbiosis between different primitive organisms has also taken place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiotic_theory
The Miller-Urey experiment showed that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, can spontaneously form in the kind of environment that may have been present on the primordial earth. Other scientists have found that nucleotide bases can form in simple chemical solutions. From there, it’s not an unimaginable step to RNA. Again, we have to keep in mind that this process is taking place over billions and billions of years. Plenty of time to fail and fail again before getting it right.
The “RNA soup” theory is only one of several theories of the origin of life. Graham Cairns-Smith has speculated that organic replicating molecules may have arisen from replicating inorganic structures, that is, crystals. Still another theory posits that life may have arrived on earth travelling on a meteorite from another planet. And so on. We don’t yet have all the answers, but that doesn’t mean we should jump to the conclusion that there must have been a designer.
Just to explain the methods for establishing the 109 timescales involved:
The rubidium-strontium dating method is a radiometric dating technique used by scientists to determine the age of rocks and minerals from the quantities they contain of specific isotopes of rubidium (87Rb) and strontium (87Sr, 86Sr).
Development of this process was aided by German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, who later went on to discover nuclear fission in December 1938.
The utility of the rubidium-strontium isotope system results from the fact that 87Rb (one of two naturally occurring isotopes of rubidium) decays to 87Sr with a half life of 48.8 billion years. In addition, Rb is a highly incompatible element that, during fractional crystallization of the mantle, stays in the magmatic melt rather than becoming part of mantle minerals. The radiogenic daughter, 87Sr, is produced in this decay process and was produced in rounds of stellar nucleosynthesis predating the creation of the Solar System.
Different minerals in a given geologic setting can acquire distinctly different ratios of radiogenic strontium-87 to naturally occurring strontium-86 (87Sr/86Sr) through time; and their age can be calculated by measuring the 87Sr/86Sr in a mass spectrometer, knowing the amount of 87Sr present when the rock or mineral formed, and calculating the amount of 87Rb from a measurement of the Rb present and knowledge of the 85Rb/87Rb weight ratio.
If these minerals crystallized from the same silicic melt, each mineral had the same initial 87Sr/86Sr as the parent melt. However, because Rb substitutes for K in minerals and these minerals have different K/Ca ratios, the minerals will have had different Rb/Sr ratios.
During fractional crystallization, Sr tends to become concentrated in plagioclase, leaving Rb in the liquid phase. Hence, the Rb/Sr ratio in residual magma may increase over time, resulting in rocks with increasing Rb/Sr ratios with increasing differentiation. Highest ratios (10 or higher) occur in pegmatites.
Typically, Rb/Sr increases in the order plagioclase, hornblende, K-feldspar, biotite, muscovite. Therefore, given sufficient time for significant production (ingrowth) of radiogenic 87Sr, measured 87Sr/86Sr values will be different in the minerals, increasing in the same order.
gradual, incremental process that has taken place over billions – that’s worth repeating – BILLIONS – of years.
Cambrian explosion - According to the geological record, evolution didn’t have 4.xx billions of years to come up with intricate life forms we know today, from basic organisms. It had a small fraction of that, about 20 million years.
From there, it’s not an unimaginable step to RNA. Again, we have to keep in mind that this process is taking place over billions and billions of years. Plenty of time to fail and fail again before getting it right.
Indeed, 4.xx billion years is a very long time. But even assuming RNA was able to form by chance, that doesn’t solve the problem of the successfully forming RNA’s environment. An isolated molecule of RNA - or a whole bunch of RNA for that matter - could never subsist for very long without the cellular systems already in place around it to support its existence. These cellullar systems are immensely complex.
Anyway, this is all speculation, we don’t know exactly what the surface of the earth was like when it first formed.
replicating inorganic structures, that is, crystals
The molecules that form crystal have a “pre-disposition” to being attracted to each other and forming bonds between certain patterns of atoms. That’s why they form into such elegant, beautiful structures.
In DNA and RNA, it’s completely the opposite: each echelon in the “backbone” of the molecule has absolutely no pre-disposition to attracting any of the nucleotide types that actually represent the genetic information. Just like, on a hard disk, each individual bit of data can either represent a zero or a one, there’s nothing in the hardware “pre-disposing” which, zero or one, will be written there (at least in theory). DNA and RNA molecules are a media for representing information, this information is independent from the actual physical media.
Regardless of the mechanism that supports it - this intricate, massive information must come from somewhere, right?
The molecules that form crystal have a “pre-disposition” to being attracted to each other and forming bonds between certain patterns of atoms. That’s why they form into such elegant, beautiful structures.
Like sugars for example:
Ribose is an organic compound with the formula C5H10O5; specifically, a pentose monosaccharide (simple sugar) with linear form H−(C=O)−(CHOH)4−H, which has all the hydroxyl groups on the same side in the Fischer projection.
The term may refer to either of two enantiomers. The term usually indicates D-ribose , which occurs widely in nature and is discussed here. Its synthetic mirror image, L-ribose , is not found in nature.
D-Ribose was first reported in 1891 by Emil Fischer. It is a C’-2 carbon epimer of the sugar D-arabinose (both isomers of which are named for their source, gum arabic) and ribose itself is named as a transposition of the name of arabinose.[3]
Ribose (β-D-ribofuranose) forms part of the backbone of RNA. It is related to deoxyribose, which is found in DNA. Phosphorylated derivatives of ribose such as ATP and NADH play central roles in metabolism. cAMP and cGMP, formed from ATP and GTP, serve as secondary messengers in some signalling pathways.
Re: billions of years versus millions – I was talking about the initial formation of simple organisms, which indeed had billions of years in which to happen. This was the topic of your original post. The Cambrian explosion is a different subject. ***
But I wonder where this conversation is really going. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but you seem to want someone to say, “Yeah, you’re right, science doesn’t have all the answers yet, therefore God, in particular, the version of the Christian God you happen to believe in, exists.”
Yes, scientists do not have all the answers. That’s why there are still scientists and research programs. And science keeps progressing. We know things now – for instance, the chemical composition of the sun – that some people thought we would never know.
The origin of life is one of the most complex scientific problems in history, so it’s no wonder we haven’t figured it out yet. There’s no reason to believe the answer must be supernatural. That’s not a real answer, that’s giving up. As I tried to make clear above, the starting point of science is that natural phenomena have natural causes. God, Vishnu, etc. will never, ever be valid scientific explanations for anything.
*** Edited to add: In any case, we should be looking at the odds in a different way. A safe estimate of the number of planets in the universe is a billion billion. So even if the chance of life forming on any one planet is a billion to one – very, very long odds – we could expect life to exist on one billion planets. And we need it to have happened only once, on Earth.
Exactly. One day we might know… we might also never know.
But one thing is for sure: the arrogance of religion for claiming they know everything is unsettling at the very least.
That’s a good point, Sqeetz. Scientists are comfortable with not knowing. It’s a huge mistake to jump to a conclusion just to have a conclusion.
What we’re really discussing here is the “God of the Gaps” fallacy, which is a kind of “proof from incredulity.” Yet scientists keep filling in the gaps and believers then have to retreat to narrower and narrower gaps.
fellow renoise compadres, dont waste time.
a lot of nonsense here.
Science is an honest view of the world, is not a book with the ultimate truth. Uncertainty is something that we embrace, i dnt feel right swallowing all these mystic bullshit.
I dont get the point of the OP, you want an answer about the origins of life? I recommend you to start with serious stuff, there’s a nice talk in youtube about Schrodinger and his seminal work “What is life”:
delt,
One more book:
You seem to be looking for answers. For what it’s worth, my advice is to keep looking – but don’t settle for easy answers.
Edited to add: Pirate Utopia is right, this discussion is a waste of time. But I have to say a few more things.
You’re attacking a “straw man” version of evolution. Again, if you’re serious about these questions, you should check out some of the books and videos people have mentioned.
Like some of the other posters, I grew up in a religious household. In my teens, I began to question the truth of the bible and it quickly fell apart. If you bring the same level of scrutiny to the bible that you’ve brought to this discussion, I think you’ll see the same thing happen.
If you like the idea of the bible, if it makes your life better and doesn’t hurt anyone else, fine. But I can tell you that it was a huge relief for me to leave religion behind. I now feel a lot better about myself and the world in general.
Many people are attracted to religion because of the sense of belonging it provides, but there are other ways to gain that same kind of fellowship. For instance, I’ve met a lot of great people through my interest in electronic music.
Ooh look, a creationism war on the forums! The ugly face of the matter is, nobody has much of a solid idea about how life formed or how evolution really works. Evolution has not been proved to be false or proved to be true. Life turns out to be very complicated, and we can barely scratch the surface of its actual form, let alone make anything more than hypothesizes about how it evolved over time. We’re figured out some cool stuff though, and we think we have seen a few interesting patterns and ways we might be able to begin to explain them.
But if you’re into attacking a straw-man model of mainstream science and saying it’s all been “proved to be false” because it doesn’t explain everything, that’s cool too. Because I, also, can make arguments, and I don’t even have to make untrue assumptions to turn your current position into that of a strawman!
To start, when you ask a question like “Those of you who believe in evolution, how did the first living cell form?”, I see a few possibilities:
you’re under the impression that mainstream science thinks evolution is a “proven fact”, and you’re a genius for finding a little glitch in it
see 1)
Oh damn! You’ve just debased the whole of our modern understanding of evolution! You should write a book!
And then you say something like “The probability that simple organic compounds could form a cell is very small => Creationism is the only rational answer.” And suddenly I’m faced with a new set of probable motives:
You assume that the physical process that formed life, if it existed, would be easily understandable and you should be able to come across it in a simple analogy.
see 1)
Yeah, I mean, when was the last time that reality has done something complicated that people didn’t immediately understand? Yeah, your logic is again flawless.
As the conservation drags on, you start loosing steam and stop making such drastic stances. You still seem to be still orbiting one central point though: evolution is as arbitrary a belief as creationism; neither of them are actually backed by objective reasoning. This seems to suggest, again, a number of possibilities:
You believe that science is based on the principle that “any old arbitrary belief goes”, and science never reforms itself in function of better, more realistic explanations of observed phenomena, contrary to the spirit of the hypothetical ideals that Karl Popper once formulated in a pipe-dream.
see 1)
… oh wait, I’m pretty sure… I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of religion. Yeah, easy to get those two mixed up, they can be so homologous.
Well, I highly doubt you’ll actually change your perception of science. Most people, especially creationists, start a discussion without an inflexible, predefined agenda. Feel free to delight us all and prove us wrong, though.
imo
this debate can go indefinitely…
since a theory can never be proven http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/delt can always go “yeeaah but i think the link between this and that is a bit of a long shot 'twas probs god who intervened there” and thus retain the belief that evolution is wrong.
same thing with anti-vaxxers or conspiracy theorists: doesn’t matter how much consensus and evidence you throw at them. they just want to keep that belief because they are so heavily invested in it.