J
Jan Panteltje
Guest
How life came to Earth ?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220210125828.htm
quantum tunneling?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220210125828.htm
quantum tunneling?
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D
David Brown
Guest
On 11/02/2022 16:54, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Since \"neo-Darwinist\" is a made-up term used by people who don\'t
understand the science of evolution, it makes no sense to suggest they
are afraid of anything - they don\'t exist.
But like most people who misunderstand science in general, and biology
in particular, you mix up evolution and abiogenesis. I doubt if you
even understand that they refer to different things. (You also mix up
the theory of evolution in general, which is simple and well
established, and the mechanisms at play in biology and lifeforms
throughout the history of the earth, which are a lot more complex and
with new details being regularly discovered.)
I\'ve been accused of \"talking past you\" in discussions. I think that\'s
fair comment. But it is because you have such a very vague idea of what
you are talking about, and produce nothing but the flimsiest of thoughts
with no evidence, justification, or even serious consideration, that
addressing your \"points\" is like trying to shoot fog.
Let me try to put this in simpler terms. (I\'ve tried before, but I\'ll
try again.)
Evolution explains how simple lifeforms can gradually change into more
complex ones. This covers all aspects of the lifeforms, including how
genetic code is stored, how mutations occur, and how mutations are
prevented. It does not, however, have anything to say about how life
started. The principles of evolution can be tested experimentally
without waiting millions of years - any kid who studied biology at
school has done it themselves with fruit flies.
Abiogenesis is about how life started from non-life. This occurred on
earth many billions of years ago (it may also have occurred many times
later - it may be occurring now in a mudpool in your back garden - but
it hasn\'t been observed). No fossil record remains from those early
days, obviously. So information is limited and inferred from what we
know of chemical and physical conditions, along with what we can trace
backwards from existing living things. Thus we will almost certainly
never be able to determine how abiogenesis actually happened. What we
/can/ do, however, is identify plausible scenarios and explanations
about what /might/ have happened. These theories will be strengthened
or weakened as we find signs of life on other planets, or fail to find
it where we might have expected it.
People studying abiogenesis are not /afraid/. Religious people are
afraid - because they only have the one possible explanation for things,
and they know the facts don\'t fit. The more evidence we gather and the
more we learn, the clearer it is that an \"explanation\" based on modern
misinterpretations of ancient writings makes no sense. Scientists - at
least the ones doing things right - are open-minded, but sceptical.
They will accept new ideas but only if there is good reason for it.
It is this requirement for rational thought and evidence that plagues
you. You have an attitude that when there is a question for which we
don\'t know the answer, then /any/ answer is equally valid. That is just
nonsense.
There is no evidence, and no rational basis for thinking that anything
involved in biology on earth was \"designed\" or had any \"intelligence\"
behind it, until homo sapiens started domesticating animals and plants,
and breeding them purposefully. There is vast evidence and solid
rational theory indicating that it all came about through natural selection.
No, it is /not/ a good idea. It is absolute bollocks as ideas go.
There is /no/ evidence, no justification, no logic, no rationality. It
does not stand up to a few seconds scrutiny or questioning - such as
asking \"why?\", or what happened to the robots, or where did they come
from, or who made them, or where did that lifeform come from, or why we
haven\'t seen /any/ evidence of such \"design\". No, it is not \"reasonably
probable\" - and you haven\'t any kind of justification for saying so.
Whether you call your imaginary creator \"God\" or \"alien robot\" is pretty
much just a name. It\'s the same religious idea. You know you are not
capable of understanding how biology works, you know we will never know
for sure how life started on earth (and that\'s true - all we can learn
is plausible scenarios). Rather than being curious and wanting to try
to discover what we can, you prefer to pick a meaningless pat answer
that has no basis and gives you nothing. It is intellectual laziness.
And \"Aliens did it\" is /no/ different from \"God did it\".
It is not even a remotely new or interesting idea.
<https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Didit_fallacy#Aliensdidit>
Try thinking about your own so-called \"ideas\" for a second.
No, there is nothing wrong with mocking laughable fantasies that you
pretend are scientific or rational by tagging on \"quantum\".
And what makes you think I /didn\'t/ think about your idea before mocking
it? What makes you so sure that I dismissed it \"instantly\" ? A lot of
what you write certainly can be dismissed quickly as groundless and
contrary to known evidence - that does not make the dismissal
inappropriate. It just means other people are far better than you at
sorting the wheat from the chaff.
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 15:55:05 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 11/02/2022 14:12, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 06:54:29 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
How life came to Earth ?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220210125828.htm
quantum tunneling?
The problem of life isn\'t coming up with small molecular building
blocks, it\'s the astoundingly complex mechanism by which DNA works in
a cell and reproduces itself. It\'s not so much a chemistry problem as
a programming problem.
Our form of life was almost certainly designed and planted on earth.
And yes, it\'s quantum mechanical.
Oh dear. Somebody needs to read up a bit on what a load of twaddle the
\"intelligent design\" idea is. It\'s an irrational, inconsistent straw
man argument made by religious fanatics who can\'t or won\'t understand
science, and who think it makes their arguments more powerful if they
pick a fight with reality and invent stuff - instead of just saying \"I
don\'t know\".
The rabid neo-Darwinists are so afraid of being accused of being
Bible-bangers that they won\'t allow themselves to think about anything
but spontaneous generation in primordial soup. That fear has seriously
slowed down evolutionary science.
Since \"neo-Darwinist\" is a made-up term used by people who don\'t
understand the science of evolution, it makes no sense to suggest they
are afraid of anything - they don\'t exist.
But like most people who misunderstand science in general, and biology
in particular, you mix up evolution and abiogenesis. I doubt if you
even understand that they refer to different things. (You also mix up
the theory of evolution in general, which is simple and well
established, and the mechanisms at play in biology and lifeforms
throughout the history of the earth, which are a lot more complex and
with new details being regularly discovered.)
I\'ve been accused of \"talking past you\" in discussions. I think that\'s
fair comment. But it is because you have such a very vague idea of what
you are talking about, and produce nothing but the flimsiest of thoughts
with no evidence, justification, or even serious consideration, that
addressing your \"points\" is like trying to shoot fog.
Let me try to put this in simpler terms. (I\'ve tried before, but I\'ll
try again.)
Evolution explains how simple lifeforms can gradually change into more
complex ones. This covers all aspects of the lifeforms, including how
genetic code is stored, how mutations occur, and how mutations are
prevented. It does not, however, have anything to say about how life
started. The principles of evolution can be tested experimentally
without waiting millions of years - any kid who studied biology at
school has done it themselves with fruit flies.
Abiogenesis is about how life started from non-life. This occurred on
earth many billions of years ago (it may also have occurred many times
later - it may be occurring now in a mudpool in your back garden - but
it hasn\'t been observed). No fossil record remains from those early
days, obviously. So information is limited and inferred from what we
know of chemical and physical conditions, along with what we can trace
backwards from existing living things. Thus we will almost certainly
never be able to determine how abiogenesis actually happened. What we
/can/ do, however, is identify plausible scenarios and explanations
about what /might/ have happened. These theories will be strengthened
or weakened as we find signs of life on other planets, or fail to find
it where we might have expected it.
People studying abiogenesis are not /afraid/. Religious people are
afraid - because they only have the one possible explanation for things,
and they know the facts don\'t fit. The more evidence we gather and the
more we learn, the clearer it is that an \"explanation\" based on modern
misinterpretations of ancient writings makes no sense. Scientists - at
least the ones doing things right - are open-minded, but sceptical.
They will accept new ideas but only if there is good reason for it.
It is this requirement for rational thought and evidence that plagues
you. You have an attitude that when there is a question for which we
don\'t know the answer, then /any/ answer is equally valid. That is just
nonsense.
There is no evidence, and no rational basis for thinking that anything
involved in biology on earth was \"designed\" or had any \"intelligence\"
behind it, until homo sapiens started domesticating animals and plants,
and breeding them purposefully. There is vast evidence and solid
rational theory indicating that it all came about through natural selection.
Waving magic words like \"quantum\" will not convince anyone here, nor
will carefully omitting any direct mention of your pet god. At least
have the decency to be honest and say you think \"God\" made life on earth
but you don\'t know how.
We have no pets, since the cat died. It\'s reasonably probable that a
robot custom-designed the first cells on earth. That\'s about as good
an idea as any other right now.
No, it is /not/ a good idea. It is absolute bollocks as ideas go.
There is /no/ evidence, no justification, no logic, no rationality. It
does not stand up to a few seconds scrutiny or questioning - such as
asking \"why?\", or what happened to the robots, or where did they come
from, or who made them, or where did that lifeform come from, or why we
haven\'t seen /any/ evidence of such \"design\". No, it is not \"reasonably
probable\" - and you haven\'t any kind of justification for saying so.
You keep saying that \' \"God\" made life on earth \' so you can mock
people. I never said that.
Whether you call your imaginary creator \"God\" or \"alien robot\" is pretty
much just a name. It\'s the same religious idea. You know you are not
capable of understanding how biology works, you know we will never know
for sure how life started on earth (and that\'s true - all we can learn
is plausible scenarios). Rather than being curious and wanting to try
to discover what we can, you prefer to pick a meaningless pat answer
that has no basis and gives you nothing. It is intellectual laziness.
And \"Aliens did it\" is /no/ different from \"God did it\".
It is not even a remotely new or interesting idea.
<https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Didit_fallacy#Aliensdidit>
(There\'s nothing wrong with being religious /and/ scientific - freedom
of religious beliefs is an important right. But there\'s something very
wrong with denying reality in order to make it \"fit\" a particularly odd
religious conviction.)
Is there anything wrong with instantly mocking ideas because they
could (but don\'t) imply theology?
Mocking means not thinking. Think about that.
Try thinking about your own so-called \"ideas\" for a second.
No, there is nothing wrong with mocking laughable fantasies that you
pretend are scientific or rational by tagging on \"quantum\".
And what makes you think I /didn\'t/ think about your idea before mocking
it? What makes you so sure that I dismissed it \"instantly\" ? A lot of
what you write certainly can be dismissed quickly as groundless and
contrary to known evidence - that does not make the dismissal
inappropriate. It just means other people are far better than you at
sorting the wheat from the chaff.
S
server
Guest
On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 16:21:54 +0100, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Darwinism
Not a bit. But \"The Science\" of both is incomplete. There remains room
for discovery.
Of course they do, at least to me. But the anti-creationist concensus
seems to blur the boundary, that abiogenesis was itself gradual
chemical evolution, which I consider to be absurd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
This is especially nonsensical:
\"Although the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among
scientists, its possible mechanisms are poorly understood.\"
How can something that\'s un-observed and not understood be
uncontroversial? The answer is that concensus crushes thinking.
I seem to believe in evolution more than you do.
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 11/02/2022 16:54, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 15:55:05 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 11/02/2022 14:12, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 06:54:29 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
How life came to Earth ?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220210125828.htm
quantum tunneling?
The problem of life isn\'t coming up with small molecular building
blocks, it\'s the astoundingly complex mechanism by which DNA works in
a cell and reproduces itself. It\'s not so much a chemistry problem as
a programming problem.
Our form of life was almost certainly designed and planted on earth.
And yes, it\'s quantum mechanical.
Oh dear. Somebody needs to read up a bit on what a load of twaddle the
\"intelligent design\" idea is. It\'s an irrational, inconsistent straw
man argument made by religious fanatics who can\'t or won\'t understand
science, and who think it makes their arguments more powerful if they
pick a fight with reality and invent stuff - instead of just saying \"I
don\'t know\".
The rabid neo-Darwinists are so afraid of being accused of being
Bible-bangers that they won\'t allow themselves to think about anything
but spontaneous generation in primordial soup. That fear has seriously
slowed down evolutionary science.
Since \"neo-Darwinist\" is a made-up term used by people who don\'t
understand the science of evolution, it makes no sense to suggest they
are afraid of anything - they don\'t exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Darwinism
But like most people who misunderstand science in general, and biology
in particular, you mix up evolution and abiogenesis.
Not a bit. But \"The Science\" of both is incomplete. There remains room
for discovery.
I doubt if you
even understand that they refer to different things.
Of course they do, at least to me. But the anti-creationist concensus
seems to blur the boundary, that abiogenesis was itself gradual
chemical evolution, which I consider to be absurd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
This is especially nonsensical:
\"Although the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among
scientists, its possible mechanisms are poorly understood.\"
How can something that\'s un-observed and not understood be
uncontroversial? The answer is that concensus crushes thinking.
I seem to believe in evolution more than you do.
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
D
David Brown
Guest
On 11/02/2022 21:10, Rick C wrote:
I was making two points. One is that your statement \"the purpose of
nucleic acids is as a blueprint for proteins\" is a massive
over-simplification. The other is that it is entirely plausible that
RNA (or similar nucleic acids) were the basis for life before proteins
were involved, at least as far as we currently know. More research into
these areas may eliminate or strengthen the hypothesis.
Sure. /All/ hypothesis for abiogenesis are based on improbable
coincidence. But that\'s okay - a small probability multiplied by
countless mudpools or volcanic vents (or other appropriate environment)
across the earth, multiplied by hundreds of millions of years, add up to
a reasonable probability in total.
> But we don\'t know.
Indeed. We can speculate, and we can find different ways to estimate
conditions on the early earth, and we can experiment to replicate these
and see if we can eliminate some possibilities and promote others. In
experiments and simulations, pretty much all the parts of abiogenesis
have been shown - formation of cell membranes, protein fabrication,
metabolism, replication, nucleic acids, etc. The big challenge is
finding out how all (or at least most) of these parts could have formed
in the same environment.
Basic proteins can form and have simple function without nucleic acids.
Basic nucleic acids can form and have simple function without proteins.
There is, currently, no way to know which was first. Perhaps both
orderings are feasible - or perhaps life required both to have formed
coincidentally in the same place and time.
Yes.
On Friday, February 11, 2022 at 9:29:54 AM UTC-5, David Brown wrote:
On 11/02/2022 08:53, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, February 11, 2022 at 1:54:57 AM UTC-5, Jan Panteltje
wrote:
How life came to Earth ?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220210125828.htm
quantum tunneling?
Not really \"life\" as such, but the most important and fundamental
building blocks of life. People think life is all about DNA or
RNA, but the reality is they are pointless without proteins.
Peptides are short proteins, or it is more common to consider
proteins to be made of multiple peptides, hence the term
polypeptide. Proteins are the functioning units of life.
Virtually everything that happens in living organisms involves
proteins in some way. It is conceivable that life started with
proteins, without any nucleic acids. It is not conceivable that
life started with nucleic acids without proteins. In fact, the
purpose of nucleic acids is as a blueprint to allow proteins to
make other proteins.
That last bit is not accurate. While acting as a blueprint for
proteins is a major purpose of DNA, it is not the only purpose. For
humans, only about 1.5% of our DNA codes directly for proteins as
\"blueprints\". Other purposes include epigenetic control and
structural support, but there\'s a lot we simply do not yet
understand. RNA also comes in many types, with many purposes. In
particular, several key jobs done by proteins as enzymes and
catalysts can be done by RNA molecules.
I think you have gone off the deep end here. None of this is
relevant to the origins of life. You are describing interactions
that have happened long after life began. I like that you even
describe \"a lot we simply do not yet understand\" as something that is
outside the basic processing of DNA being the blueprint for proteins.
I was making two points. One is that your statement \"the purpose of
nucleic acids is as a blueprint for proteins\" is a massive
over-simplification. The other is that it is entirely plausible that
RNA (or similar nucleic acids) were the basis for life before proteins
were involved, at least as far as we currently know. More research into
these areas may eliminate or strengthen the hypothesis.
Thus there is the hypothesis called \"RNA world\" which supposes that
RNA was central to the earliest lifeforms, and came before the
biological use of proteins. It\'s a hypothesis - nothing is proven.
But there\'s enough justification and support for it that it is a
serious research topic. Certainly there is not enough supporting
evidence to claim that it is inconceivable that life started with
nucleic acids without proteins - abiogenesis researchers very
actively conceive that idea. (Equally, of course, they also
consider proteins first, or combinations of nucleic acids and
proteins at a similar time, or other possibilities - it\'s an open
area of science.)
Once you start talking about things needing to happen coincidentally,
you get into an increasingly improbable region.
Sure. /All/ hypothesis for abiogenesis are based on improbable
coincidence. But that\'s okay - a small probability multiplied by
countless mudpools or volcanic vents (or other appropriate environment)
across the earth, multiplied by hundreds of millions of years, add up to
a reasonable probability in total.
> But we don\'t know.
Indeed. We can speculate, and we can find different ways to estimate
conditions on the early earth, and we can experiment to replicate these
and see if we can eliminate some possibilities and promote others. In
experiments and simulations, pretty much all the parts of abiogenesis
have been shown - formation of cell membranes, protein fabrication,
metabolism, replication, nucleic acids, etc. The big challenge is
finding out how all (or at least most) of these parts could have formed
in the same environment.
However, since proteins can function in a life-like process without
nucleic acid blueprints, there is no reason to think they must have
been involved in the beginning.
Basic proteins can form and have simple function without nucleic acids.
Basic nucleic acids can form and have simple function without proteins.
There is, currently, no way to know which was first. Perhaps both
orderings are feasible - or perhaps life required both to have formed
coincidentally in the same place and time.
So they are suggesting that the basic units of life, may have
come from space rather than for them to have been created on
earth initially. They are at least, leaving the door open for
these units to have been created in space.
Whether such \"basic units of life\" (including amino acids,
peptides, fatty acids, nucleic acids, organic molecules, complex
carbohydrates, etc.) first arrived from space or first came
together on earth, is unlikely ever to be fully established.
However, the fact that we have found many of them in space makes it
clear that they can be produced by relatively simple natural
forces, breaking the chicken-and-egg cycle of requiring lifeforms
to make the building blocks of life.
It can also help to answer some of the /why/ questions - such as
why all known lifeforms use mostly the same chemical parts. Those
are the parts that were found lying around when the lifeforms first
formed.
Or that these are the \"parts\" that are possible given the raw
materials available due to the basics of physics and chemistry.
Yes.
D
David Brown
Guest
On 11/02/2022 19:35, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
There is also the big issue that on a cosmic scale, planets are unstable.
So far, we have only one planet with life to look at. We can make
guesses from that, but of course we have no way of knowing the accuracy
of our extrapolations. With that proviso, we know:
1. Life on earth formed pretty much as soon as conditions were
tolerable. Within a few hundred million years of there being surface
water, an atmosphere (giving more stable global temperature) and an end
to the planet-building phase of the solar system, life evolved on earth.
2. It took about 2 billion years to go from simple cellular lifeforms
(bacteria and archaea) to the next big thing - the eukaryote.
3. It took a hundred million years to invent sex, then development
really started taking off. A few more hundred million years, and
multi-cellular life was common.
4. Life tends to stabilise and find a balance, with long periods of
relatively little change. This is interspersed with catastrophes that
lead to mass extinctions, followed by rapid evolutionary diversity to
fill the niches that open up once conditions improve again.
5. \"Advanced\" animal life is only a few hundred million years old.
\"Intelligent\" life is far younger.
This would all suggest that its relatively easy for basic lifeforms to
form and evolve on planets with the appropriate fundamental requirements
(liquid water, stable environments, appropriate chemicals). But
evolution of complex and then intelligent life requires a lot more time,
and a lot more luck with disasters that are almost but not quite deadly
to the planet - \"whatever doesn\'t kill you makes you stronger\".
What are the chances of a planet in this galaxy surviving for 4.5
billion years without being hit by a nearby gamma glint, bumped a little
out of orbit by a passing star, getting hit by a meteor a few times
bigger than the dinosaurs\' bane? I haven\'t seen the calculations, but I
suspect that very few planets remain viable for life for long enough
without the universe obliterating their populations - that\'s before they
get intelligent enough to do it themselves.
On 2022-02-11 19:12, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 11/02/22 17:02, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
If you believe in spontaneous generation and evolution, you might
consider that life should have evolved in billions of places in the
universe, billions of years ago.
Give that another 100 milliseconds of thought before you dismiss it.
âTwo possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe
or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.â â Arthur C. Clarke
My personal belief is that intelligent life has evolved many
times, but we haven\'t yet communicated with other examples.
Many people have indeed given that serious consideration,
famously Enrico Fermi\'s name and fellow physicists Edward Teller,
Herbert York and Emil Konopinski - back in 1950. FFI, see the
inconclusive musings about \"The Fermi Paradox\".
I think intelligent life is unstable. By the time it has become
sufficiently powerful to communicate or travel over cosmic distances,
it also has become powerful enough to blow itself into oblivion,
and will, after a short while (on cosmic timescales).
There is also the big issue that on a cosmic scale, planets are unstable.
So far, we have only one planet with life to look at. We can make
guesses from that, but of course we have no way of knowing the accuracy
of our extrapolations. With that proviso, we know:
1. Life on earth formed pretty much as soon as conditions were
tolerable. Within a few hundred million years of there being surface
water, an atmosphere (giving more stable global temperature) and an end
to the planet-building phase of the solar system, life evolved on earth.
2. It took about 2 billion years to go from simple cellular lifeforms
(bacteria and archaea) to the next big thing - the eukaryote.
3. It took a hundred million years to invent sex, then development
really started taking off. A few more hundred million years, and
multi-cellular life was common.
4. Life tends to stabilise and find a balance, with long periods of
relatively little change. This is interspersed with catastrophes that
lead to mass extinctions, followed by rapid evolutionary diversity to
fill the niches that open up once conditions improve again.
5. \"Advanced\" animal life is only a few hundred million years old.
\"Intelligent\" life is far younger.
This would all suggest that its relatively easy for basic lifeforms to
form and evolve on planets with the appropriate fundamental requirements
(liquid water, stable environments, appropriate chemicals). But
evolution of complex and then intelligent life requires a lot more time,
and a lot more luck with disasters that are almost but not quite deadly
to the planet - \"whatever doesn\'t kill you makes you stronger\".
What are the chances of a planet in this galaxy surviving for 4.5
billion years without being hit by a nearby gamma glint, bumped a little
out of orbit by a passing star, getting hit by a meteor a few times
bigger than the dinosaurs\' bane? I haven\'t seen the calculations, but I
suspect that very few planets remain viable for life for long enough
without the universe obliterating their populations - that\'s before they
get intelligent enough to do it themselves.
D
David Brown
Guest
On 14/02/2022 22:43, John Larkin wrote:
And you think that means you know biology? The many years of education,
experience, understanding and interest leapt out of your lunch
companion\'s head and into yours while waiting for your order to arrive?
That reminds me of someone who claimed to have a \"natural ability\" for
science because his uncle is a \"super genius professor\". Any guesses
who that might have been?
I took a biologist to lunch today.
And you think that means you know biology? The many years of education,
experience, understanding and interest leapt out of your lunch
companion\'s head and into yours while waiting for your order to arrive?
That reminds me of someone who claimed to have a \"natural ability\" for
science because his uncle is a \"super genius professor\". Any guesses
who that might have been?
D
David Brown
Guest
On 12/02/2022 16:45, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Science is /always/ incomplete. That\'s part of the point.
Merely claiming that you understand things does not make it true - your
ignorance shines through in your posts. There is no more evidence to
your understanding than there is evidence to your \"ideas\".
You love to complain when people quickly dismiss your baseless random
thoughts, yet you dismiss serious science on the grounds that /you/
consider it to be absurd.
Right...
You really haven\'t given this much thought, have you? /Please/ tell me
you haven\'t. The alternative is that you are incapable of simple
rational thought.
This is just a simple two-step process.
We know that at some point in the past, there was no life. (Let\'s
humour you and say we are talking about the planet that developed the
lifeforms that made the robots that seeded the earth - for those that
prefer to stick to reality, we are talking about the earth or any other
planet that developed life itself.)
We know that there is life here now.
Therefore, the planet moved from the state of having no life to the
state of having life, in a purely chemical and physical manner. That is
termed \"abiogenesis\" - the formation of life from non-living matter.
Abiogenesis is completely uncontroversial. Even if you believe in alien
robots, abiogenesis happened on /their/ planet.
Really, it\'s not hard.
(The only alternative is that some god or gods created life - and that
is not science. Science can\'t disprove anything about gods, and there
is no evidence of any gods. It is simply a non-issue as far as science
is concerned, since if evidence of gods were found, that would then be
science.)
$DEITY only knows what you believe in, or why.
Next you\'ll be telling us that the red sun of Krypton means that
Superman\'s cells produce antigravity that lets him fly, and thus /you/
believe in gravity more than I do.
The more rational and scientifically minded among us don\'t rely on
\"belief\" for evolution - we rely on knowledge of the best current
theories in science, with the expectation that these will be changed if
new evidence is found that contradicts them.
On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 16:21:54 +0100, David Brown
But like most people who misunderstand science in general, and biology
in particular, you mix up evolution and abiogenesis.
Not a bit. But \"The Science\" of both is incomplete. There remains room
for discovery.
Science is /always/ incomplete. That\'s part of the point.
Merely claiming that you understand things does not make it true - your
ignorance shines through in your posts. There is no more evidence to
your understanding than there is evidence to your \"ideas\".
I doubt if you
even understand that they refer to different things.
Of course they do, at least to me. But the anti-creationist concensus
seems to blur the boundary, that abiogenesis was itself gradual
chemical evolution, which I consider to be absurd.
You love to complain when people quickly dismiss your baseless random
thoughts, yet you dismiss serious science on the grounds that /you/
consider it to be absurd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
This is especially nonsensical:
\"Although the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among
scientists, its possible mechanisms are poorly understood.\"
How can something that\'s un-observed and not understood be
uncontroversial? The answer is that concensus crushes thinking.
Right...
You really haven\'t given this much thought, have you? /Please/ tell me
you haven\'t. The alternative is that you are incapable of simple
rational thought.
This is just a simple two-step process.
We know that at some point in the past, there was no life. (Let\'s
humour you and say we are talking about the planet that developed the
lifeforms that made the robots that seeded the earth - for those that
prefer to stick to reality, we are talking about the earth or any other
planet that developed life itself.)
We know that there is life here now.
Therefore, the planet moved from the state of having no life to the
state of having life, in a purely chemical and physical manner. That is
termed \"abiogenesis\" - the formation of life from non-living matter.
Abiogenesis is completely uncontroversial. Even if you believe in alien
robots, abiogenesis happened on /their/ planet.
Really, it\'s not hard.
(The only alternative is that some god or gods created life - and that
is not science. Science can\'t disprove anything about gods, and there
is no evidence of any gods. It is simply a non-issue as far as science
is concerned, since if evidence of gods were found, that would then be
science.)
I seem to believe in evolution more than you do.
$DEITY only knows what you believe in, or why.
Next you\'ll be telling us that the red sun of Krypton means that
Superman\'s cells produce antigravity that lets him fly, and thus /you/
believe in gravity more than I do.
The more rational and scientifically minded among us don\'t rely on
\"belief\" for evolution - we rely on knowledge of the best current
theories in science, with the expectation that these will be changed if
new evidence is found that contradicts them.
S
server
Guest
On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 17:43:55 +0100, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
Then Science should be cautious about concensus and certainty,
especially about things that are unexplained and not subject to
repeatable experiment.
You claim to understand the origin of life. I speculate precisely
because I don\'t understand it. Nobody does.
Design is speculating widely about unknowns. Uncertainty, confusion,
wandering about the solution space are assets to design. Concensus,
surity, convention, \"good engineering practice\" are the enemies of
invention.
Design something, post it, and we can discuss it.
Design something. It\'s on-topic and requires rational thought.
Right. But maybe not DNA.
Us? That\'s funny. A clan of Science groupies.
New evidence? What\'s the old evidence for life springing from
primordial soup and evolution in RNA World? Making a few organic
molecules in a test tube, with an electric arc, ain\'t making a living,
reproducing cell. It\'s not a chemistry problem, it\'s an information
problem.
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 12/02/2022 16:45, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 16:21:54 +0100, David Brown
But like most people who misunderstand science in general, and biology
in particular, you mix up evolution and abiogenesis.
Not a bit. But \"The Science\" of both is incomplete. There remains room
for discovery.
Science is /always/ incomplete. That\'s part of the point.
Then Science should be cautious about concensus and certainty,
especially about things that are unexplained and not subject to
repeatable experiment.
Merely claiming that you understand things does not make it true - your
ignorance shines through in your posts. There is no more evidence to
your understanding than there is evidence to your \"ideas\".
You claim to understand the origin of life. I speculate precisely
because I don\'t understand it. Nobody does.
Design is speculating widely about unknowns. Uncertainty, confusion,
wandering about the solution space are assets to design. Concensus,
surity, convention, \"good engineering practice\" are the enemies of
invention.
Design something, post it, and we can discuss it.
I doubt if you
even understand that they refer to different things.
Of course they do, at least to me. But the anti-creationist concensus
seems to blur the boundary, that abiogenesis was itself gradual
chemical evolution, which I consider to be absurd.
You love to complain when people quickly dismiss your baseless random
thoughts, yet you dismiss serious science on the grounds that /you/
consider it to be absurd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
This is especially nonsensical:
\"Although the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among
scientists, its possible mechanisms are poorly understood.\"
How can something that\'s un-observed and not understood be
uncontroversial? The answer is that concensus crushes thinking.
Right...
You really haven\'t given this much thought, have you? /Please/ tell me
you haven\'t. The alternative is that you are incapable of simple
rational thought.
Design something. It\'s on-topic and requires rational thought.
This is just a simple two-step process.
We know that at some point in the past, there was no life. (Let\'s
humour you and say we are talking about the planet that developed the
lifeforms that made the robots that seeded the earth - for those that
prefer to stick to reality, we are talking about the earth or any other
planet that developed life itself.)
We know that there is life here now.
Therefore, the planet moved from the state of having no life to the
state of having life, in a purely chemical and physical manner. That is
termed \"abiogenesis\" - the formation of life from non-living matter.
Abiogenesis is completely uncontroversial. Even if you believe in alien
robots, abiogenesis happened on /their/ planet.
Right. But maybe not DNA.
Really, it\'s not hard.
(The only alternative is that some god or gods created life - and that
is not science. Science can\'t disprove anything about gods, and there
is no evidence of any gods. It is simply a non-issue as far as science
is concerned, since if evidence of gods were found, that would then be
science.)
I seem to believe in evolution more than you do.
$DEITY only knows what you believe in, or why.
Next you\'ll be telling us that the red sun of Krypton means that
Superman\'s cells produce antigravity that lets him fly, and thus /you/
believe in gravity more than I do.
The more rational and scientifically minded among us
Us? That\'s funny. A clan of Science groupies.
don\'t rely on
\"belief\" for evolution - we rely on knowledge of the best current
theories in science, with the expectation that these will be changed if
new evidence is found that contradicts them.
New evidence? What\'s the old evidence for life springing from
primordial soup and evolution in RNA World? Making a few organic
molecules in a test tube, with an electric arc, ain\'t making a living,
reproducing cell. It\'s not a chemistry problem, it\'s an information
problem.
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
T
Tom Gardner
Guest
On 14/02/22 21:43, John Larkin wrote:
My daughter took an electronic engineer to lunch last week.
This week I hear she is changing profession to electronics design.
Are you a biologist? Do you know one?
I took a biologist to lunch today.
My daughter took an electronic engineer to lunch last week.
This week I hear she is changing profession to electronics design.
D
David Brown
Guest
On 14/02/2022 22:52, John Larkin wrote:
The Chinese were printing books in large quantities many hundreds of
years before it was even imagined in Europe. Their books were in
Chinese, for use in China - they did not spread.
Islamic scholarship and science formed the foundation of Western science
and technology. As well as their own developments, the Islamic scholars
collected, preserved and translated writings from the ancient Greeks and
Romans, Jews, Indian scientists and mathematicians, and others.
European scholarship, outside of insane theological debates, started
when European scholars visited the Islamic world to learn.
But you are right that the Gutenberg press meant that the new learning
could be spread faster in Europe. And Europeans were much better and
more enthusiastic at turning the science into practical technology for
killing and oppressing other people that they viewed as inferior.
Literacy rates were much lower in Europe than the Islamic empire. It
took a long time after the Gutenberg press before literacy became common
in Europe - in particular, when Bibles became available in common
languages rather than Latin, the Protestant Church (unlike the Catholic
Church) encouraged people to read it themselves. Meanwhile, back in the
Islamic world, literacy was extremely common - as it had been in Roman
times prior to the dark ages.
The collapse of the Western Roman Empire ended of the supply of paper
from North Africa into Europe, leading to a massive decline in European
literacy. It turns out that having cheap stuff to write on was vastly
more important for literacy than any old book or religion.
On Mon, 14 Feb 2022 20:27:03 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 14/02/2022 17:05, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 13 Feb 2022 14:53:43 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
..........
Established church tended to be into burning heretics and their books.
New knowledge conflicting with scripture was viewed as very dangerous by
the authorities. US YEC\'s still haven\'t got out of those Dark Ages.
The \"Genesis is a literal description of creation\" is a modern idea -
young earthers, like flat earthers, are not people that never left the
Dark Ages, they are people who have chosen to re-enter it. Until people
started finding geological proof that the earth is old, and Darwin and
others (before and afterwards) began to understand evolution, few people
really thought about the creation of the earth in any kind of real
sense. Theologians of the day knew fine that Genesis was not a literal
record of creation - they could see perfectly well that it contains two
contradictory accounts and thus literalism cannot possibly make sense.
But modern science and technology developed mainly in Christian
countries. The Jesuits have been great scientists and mathematicians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jesuit_scientists
Europe was dragged kicking and screaming out of the dark ages by the
Islamic scholars. India and China were /way/ ahead for a long time.
But in the past few centuries the west took over.
The Islamic and Chinese science was not dissiminated, didn\'t become
beneficial technology, like western science did. Partially because we
printed a lot of books.
The Chinese were printing books in large quantities many hundreds of
years before it was even imagined in Europe. Their books were in
Chinese, for use in China - they did not spread.
Islamic scholarship and science formed the foundation of Western science
and technology. As well as their own developments, the Islamic scholars
collected, preserved and translated writings from the ancient Greeks and
Romans, Jews, Indian scientists and mathematicians, and others.
European scholarship, outside of insane theological debates, started
when European scholars visited the Islamic world to learn.
But you are right that the Gutenberg press meant that the new learning
could be spread faster in Europe. And Europeans were much better and
more enthusiastic at turning the science into practical technology for
killing and oppressing other people that they viewed as inferior.
However, it was not /because/ of the Christian church, it is mainly
/despite/ it.
For a long time, scientists in the west were all
religious - part of that was that saying anything could get your badly
burned, literally or at least metaphorically. And since education was
in the hands of the church, and education is required for real progress
in science, there was a strong overlap for a while. As long as the
scientists did not contradict the church (this was Martin\'s point), that
was fine.
The real point is that, as the Enlightenment and modern science
advanced, the church stepped aside.
Yes.
Science really took off in the west took off after the enlightenment,
when people started questioning the church teachings a lot more. But
the church still provided the backbone of higher education for a long
time. (Not least was the teaching of Latin, giving educated people a
common language.)
One reason printing flourished was to print a lot of bibles. One
reason literacy advanced was so people could read them.
Literacy rates were much lower in Europe than the Islamic empire. It
took a long time after the Gutenberg press before literacy became common
in Europe - in particular, when Bibles became available in common
languages rather than Latin, the Protestant Church (unlike the Catholic
Church) encouraged people to read it themselves. Meanwhile, back in the
Islamic world, literacy was extremely common - as it had been in Roman
times prior to the dark ages.
The collapse of the Western Roman Empire ended of the supply of paper
from North Africa into Europe, leading to a massive decline in European
literacy. It turns out that having cheap stuff to write on was vastly
more important for literacy than any old book or religion.
J
Jeroen Belleman
Guest
On 2022-02-12 18:03, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
At the lowest level, it *is* a chemistry problem. The known fact is that
polypeptides make copies of themselves under the right conditions. There
is no need for complex proteins to do it, even if it works better with
them. There is no need for this process to happen inside cells, although
that does provide a better environment with the right conditions. The early
details of the process, and the various steps towards increasing
sophistication are still very uncertain, but the overall outline is
pretty clear.
We can\'t exclude (yet) that life came from elsewhere, but even then, this
solves nothing. It\'s just another level of indirection. It has to start
somewhere. There may be life elsewhere, or not. We don\'t yet have the
statistics to make any plausible guesses.
Jeroen Belleman
On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 17:43:55 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 12/02/2022 16:45, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 16:21:54 +0100, David Brown
But like most people who misunderstand science in general, and biology
in particular, you mix up evolution and abiogenesis.
Not a bit. But \"The Science\" of both is incomplete. There remains room
for discovery.
Science is /always/ incomplete. That\'s part of the point.
Then Science should be cautious about concensus and certainty,
especially about things that are unexplained and not subject to
repeatable experiment.
Merely claiming that you understand things does not make it true - your
ignorance shines through in your posts. There is no more evidence to
your understanding than there is evidence to your \"ideas\".
You claim to understand the origin of life. I speculate precisely
because I don\'t understand it. Nobody does.
Design is speculating widely about unknowns. Uncertainty, confusion,
wandering about the solution space are assets to design. Concensus,
surity, convention, \"good engineering practice\" are the enemies of
invention.
Design something, post it, and we can discuss it.
I doubt if you
even understand that they refer to different things.
Of course they do, at least to me. But the anti-creationist concensus
seems to blur the boundary, that abiogenesis was itself gradual
chemical evolution, which I consider to be absurd.
You love to complain when people quickly dismiss your baseless random
thoughts, yet you dismiss serious science on the grounds that /you/
consider it to be absurd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
This is especially nonsensical:
\"Although the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among
scientists, its possible mechanisms are poorly understood.\"
How can something that\'s un-observed and not understood be
uncontroversial? The answer is that concensus crushes thinking.
Right...
You really haven\'t given this much thought, have you? /Please/ tell me
you haven\'t. The alternative is that you are incapable of simple
rational thought.
Design something. It\'s on-topic and requires rational thought.
This is just a simple two-step process.
We know that at some point in the past, there was no life. (Let\'s
humour you and say we are talking about the planet that developed the
lifeforms that made the robots that seeded the earth - for those that
prefer to stick to reality, we are talking about the earth or any other
planet that developed life itself.)
We know that there is life here now.
Therefore, the planet moved from the state of having no life to the
state of having life, in a purely chemical and physical manner. That is
termed \"abiogenesis\" - the formation of life from non-living matter.
Abiogenesis is completely uncontroversial. Even if you believe in alien
robots, abiogenesis happened on /their/ planet.
Right. But maybe not DNA.
Really, it\'s not hard.
(The only alternative is that some god or gods created life - and that
is not science. Science can\'t disprove anything about gods, and there
is no evidence of any gods. It is simply a non-issue as far as science
is concerned, since if evidence of gods were found, that would then be
science.)
I seem to believe in evolution more than you do.
$DEITY only knows what you believe in, or why.
Next you\'ll be telling us that the red sun of Krypton means that
Superman\'s cells produce antigravity that lets him fly, and thus /you/
believe in gravity more than I do.
The more rational and scientifically minded among us
Us? That\'s funny. A clan of Science groupies.
don\'t rely on
\"belief\" for evolution - we rely on knowledge of the best current
theories in science, with the expectation that these will be changed if
new evidence is found that contradicts them.
New evidence? What\'s the old evidence for life springing from
primordial soup and evolution in RNA World? Making a few organic
molecules in a test tube, with an electric arc, ain\'t making a living,
reproducing cell. It\'s not a chemistry problem, it\'s an information
problem.
At the lowest level, it *is* a chemistry problem. The known fact is that
polypeptides make copies of themselves under the right conditions. There
is no need for complex proteins to do it, even if it works better with
them. There is no need for this process to happen inside cells, although
that does provide a better environment with the right conditions. The early
details of the process, and the various steps towards increasing
sophistication are still very uncertain, but the overall outline is
pretty clear.
We can\'t exclude (yet) that life came from elsewhere, but even then, this
solves nothing. It\'s just another level of indirection. It has to start
somewhere. There may be life elsewhere, or not. We don\'t yet have the
statistics to make any plausible guesses.
Jeroen Belleman
J
Joe Gwinn
Guest
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 16:18:10 -0800, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:
Some DNA-free bacteria probably still exist, but have not yet been
found. But there are plenty of bacteria that have never been studied,
so don\'t lose hope. They may be only in extreme environments, like
near deep-sea \"smoker\" vents.
..<https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22093146/>
\"Does a DNA-less cellular organism exist on Earth?\", Akira Hiyoshi,
Kohji Miyahara, Chiaki Kato, Yasumi Ohshima,
Genes Cells, . 2011 Dec;16(12):1146-58.
doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2443.2011.01558.x. Epub 2011 Nov 17.
>Some lab jock should invent some.
Could well be underway, done by the same folk who have been trying to
find the minimum number of genes a bacteria can have. I don\'t recall
the current number, but it was something like a thousand. I laid out
the details in the \"cool book\" thread of mid 2021, as I recall.
Joe Gwinn
<jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 16:57:12 -0500, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net
wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 12:36:50 -0800, John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 19:46:05 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 2022-02-11 14:12, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 06:54:29 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
How life came to Earth ?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220210125828.htm
quantum tunneling?
The problem of life isn\'t coming up with small molecular building
blocks, it\'s the astoundingly complex mechanism by which DNA works in
a cell and reproduces itself. It\'s not so much a chemistry problem as
a programming problem.
It\'s astoundingly complex now, yes, but it can\'t have been in the beginning.
It had to be. DNA style reproduction is incredibly recursively
complex. Nobody has explained how that self-defining complexity could
have happened from a puddle of primordial soup. Lots of biologists
have calculated the probability as indistingishable from impossible.
Until someone does show how it could have happened, without
intelligent intervention, robots from outer space, or some master
designer, are as legit a theory as spontaneous generation.
It\'s pretty likely that life began with RNA and eventually proteins et
al. DNA came far later, from the RNA world. Much of the ancient RNA
word still exists, as the underlying machinery of modern DNA-based
critters.
Joe Gwinn
Is there any RNA life around now, independent of DNA? Where did it go?
Some DNA-free bacteria probably still exist, but have not yet been
found. But there are plenty of bacteria that have never been studied,
so don\'t lose hope. They may be only in extreme environments, like
near deep-sea \"smoker\" vents.
..<https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22093146/>
\"Does a DNA-less cellular organism exist on Earth?\", Akira Hiyoshi,
Kohji Miyahara, Chiaki Kato, Yasumi Ohshima,
Genes Cells, . 2011 Dec;16(12):1146-58.
doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2443.2011.01558.x. Epub 2011 Nov 17.
>Some lab jock should invent some.
Could well be underway, done by the same folk who have been trying to
find the minimum number of genes a bacteria can have. I don\'t recall
the current number, but it was something like a thousand. I laid out
the details in the \"cool book\" thread of mid 2021, as I recall.
Joe Gwinn
D
David Brown
Guest
On 14/02/2022 10:51, Martin Brown wrote:
Bacteriophages were a big research area, especially in Russia (as far as
I have heard) until antibiotics were discovered. Then we all thought we
had won the war on bacteria, so there was no need to pursue the
difficult work with phages. But it turns out the victory declaration
was a little premature, so interest in phages is returning.
A few years ago a lab in Northern Norway was opened as the first (AFAIK)
place mass-producing phages, for treatment of diseases in farmed fish.
That\'s a stepping stone towards using them as treatments more generally.
Virophages are a bit too specialised to be practical for treatment of
viral diseases.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virophage>
There is a /huge/ variety of viruses today. The genome size ranges from
about 7 kbp to 1.4 Mbp. For comparison, bacteria range from about 130
kbp to 14 Mbp. (A qualitative term like \"simpler\" doesn\'t translate
directly to genome length, but it is perhaps the best we can do.)
I think it is also fair to suppose that a lot of viruses have become
simpler over time when they have specialised in particular hosts and
environments, as well as viruses that have become more complex and
sophisticated over the eons.
If you are referring to the hypothesis that viruses pre-dated bacteria
in the timeline of life, then such viruses would be simpler in some ways
(being few steps beyond non-biological chemicals), but would likely have
additional features that have since been lost as they no longer need
their own replication machinery.
One of the things I find most fascinating about tardigrades is that each
species has the same number of cells all its life (after hatching).
On 13/02/2022 17:31, David Brown wrote:
On 13/02/2022 17:51, Martin Brown wrote:
You can haggle about whether or not they are truly alive because they
need to hijack a cell to replicate (at least all the ones I know of do).
There are some viruses that are so simple that they can\'t hijack a
cell\'s replication systems - they hijack another virus\'s hijacking! In
a sense, they are small viruses that infect other large viruses. Fun
stuff.
And little fleas have lesser fleas upon their backs to bite \'em.
Eventually in a quantised world they get too small to be viable.
Viral phages that attack bacteria are also quite interesting and some of
them may yet have therapeutic value. Progress in this field is slow but
steady as the various pieces are found and understood.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01880-6
Bacteriophages were a big research area, especially in Russia (as far as
I have heard) until antibiotics were discovered. Then we all thought we
had won the war on bacteria, so there was no need to pursue the
difficult work with phages. But it turns out the victory declaration
was a little premature, so interest in phages is returning.
A few years ago a lab in Northern Norway was opened as the first (AFAIK)
place mass-producing phages, for treatment of diseases in farmed fish.
That\'s a stepping stone towards using them as treatments more generally.
Virophages are a bit too specialised to be practical for treatment of
viral diseases.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virophage>
The viruses that we see today have co-evolved with their hosts for many
billions of years. The earliest ones would have been much much simpler.
There is a /huge/ variety of viruses today. The genome size ranges from
about 7 kbp to 1.4 Mbp. For comparison, bacteria range from about 130
kbp to 14 Mbp. (A qualitative term like \"simpler\" doesn\'t translate
directly to genome length, but it is perhaps the best we can do.)
I think it is also fair to suppose that a lot of viruses have become
simpler over time when they have specialised in particular hosts and
environments, as well as viruses that have become more complex and
sophisticated over the eons.
If you are referring to the hypothesis that viruses pre-dated bacteria
in the timeline of life, then such viruses would be simpler in some ways
(being few steps beyond non-biological chemicals), but would likely have
additional features that have since been lost as they no longer need
their own replication machinery.
Tardigrades only go back about about half a billion years. They haven\'t
changed all that much - they are good enough to beat most things in
terms of staying alive (if only just) in very hostile environments.
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/tardigrades
One of the things I find most fascinating about tardigrades is that each
species has the same number of cells all its life (after hatching).
S
server
Guest
On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 20:03:12 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
Uncertain and pretty clear? RNA world is just as faith-based as life
springing from the head of Zeus.
The dilemma with DNA *is* an information problem. What was the
bootstrap process for an incredibly complex machine that is programmed
to make itself?
Why do guesses have to be plausible? Seems like a very sterile way to
live.
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 2022-02-12 18:03, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 17:43:55 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 12/02/2022 16:45, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 16:21:54 +0100, David Brown
But like most people who misunderstand science in general, and biology
in particular, you mix up evolution and abiogenesis.
Not a bit. But \"The Science\" of both is incomplete. There remains room
for discovery.
Science is /always/ incomplete. That\'s part of the point.
Then Science should be cautious about concensus and certainty,
especially about things that are unexplained and not subject to
repeatable experiment.
Merely claiming that you understand things does not make it true - your
ignorance shines through in your posts. There is no more evidence to
your understanding than there is evidence to your \"ideas\".
You claim to understand the origin of life. I speculate precisely
because I don\'t understand it. Nobody does.
Design is speculating widely about unknowns. Uncertainty, confusion,
wandering about the solution space are assets to design. Concensus,
surity, convention, \"good engineering practice\" are the enemies of
invention.
Design something, post it, and we can discuss it.
I doubt if you
even understand that they refer to different things.
Of course they do, at least to me. But the anti-creationist concensus
seems to blur the boundary, that abiogenesis was itself gradual
chemical evolution, which I consider to be absurd.
You love to complain when people quickly dismiss your baseless random
thoughts, yet you dismiss serious science on the grounds that /you/
consider it to be absurd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
This is especially nonsensical:
\"Although the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among
scientists, its possible mechanisms are poorly understood.\"
How can something that\'s un-observed and not understood be
uncontroversial? The answer is that concensus crushes thinking.
Right...
You really haven\'t given this much thought, have you? /Please/ tell me
you haven\'t. The alternative is that you are incapable of simple
rational thought.
Design something. It\'s on-topic and requires rational thought.
This is just a simple two-step process.
We know that at some point in the past, there was no life. (Let\'s
humour you and say we are talking about the planet that developed the
lifeforms that made the robots that seeded the earth - for those that
prefer to stick to reality, we are talking about the earth or any other
planet that developed life itself.)
We know that there is life here now.
Therefore, the planet moved from the state of having no life to the
state of having life, in a purely chemical and physical manner. That is
termed \"abiogenesis\" - the formation of life from non-living matter.
Abiogenesis is completely uncontroversial. Even if you believe in alien
robots, abiogenesis happened on /their/ planet.
Right. But maybe not DNA.
Really, it\'s not hard.
(The only alternative is that some god or gods created life - and that
is not science. Science can\'t disprove anything about gods, and there
is no evidence of any gods. It is simply a non-issue as far as science
is concerned, since if evidence of gods were found, that would then be
science.)
I seem to believe in evolution more than you do.
$DEITY only knows what you believe in, or why.
Next you\'ll be telling us that the red sun of Krypton means that
Superman\'s cells produce antigravity that lets him fly, and thus /you/
believe in gravity more than I do.
The more rational and scientifically minded among us
Us? That\'s funny. A clan of Science groupies.
don\'t rely on
\"belief\" for evolution - we rely on knowledge of the best current
theories in science, with the expectation that these will be changed if
new evidence is found that contradicts them.
New evidence? What\'s the old evidence for life springing from
primordial soup and evolution in RNA World? Making a few organic
molecules in a test tube, with an electric arc, ain\'t making a living,
reproducing cell. It\'s not a chemistry problem, it\'s an information
problem.
At the lowest level, it *is* a chemistry problem. The known fact is that
polypeptides make copies of themselves under the right conditions. There
is no need for complex proteins to do it, even if it works better with
them. There is no need for this process to happen inside cells, although
that does provide a better environment with the right conditions. The early
details of the process, and the various steps towards increasing
sophistication are still very uncertain, but the overall outline is
pretty clear.
Uncertain and pretty clear? RNA world is just as faith-based as life
springing from the head of Zeus.
The dilemma with DNA *is* an information problem. What was the
bootstrap process for an incredibly complex machine that is programmed
to make itself?
We can\'t exclude (yet) that life came from elsewhere, but even then, this
solves nothing. It\'s just another level of indirection. It has to start
somewhere. There may be life elsewhere, or not. We don\'t yet have the
statistics to make any plausible guesses.
Jeroen Belleman
Why do guesses have to be plausible? Seems like a very sterile way to
live.
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
S
server
Guest
On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 14:18:01 -0500, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/how-many-genes-are-necessary-to-create-a-living-cell/
It\'s not said if that cell can reproduce.
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 16:18:10 -0800, John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 16:57:12 -0500, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net
wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 12:36:50 -0800, John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 19:46:05 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 2022-02-11 14:12, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 06:54:29 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
How life came to Earth ?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220210125828.htm
quantum tunneling?
The problem of life isn\'t coming up with small molecular building
blocks, it\'s the astoundingly complex mechanism by which DNA works in
a cell and reproduces itself. It\'s not so much a chemistry problem as
a programming problem.
It\'s astoundingly complex now, yes, but it can\'t have been in the beginning.
It had to be. DNA style reproduction is incredibly recursively
complex. Nobody has explained how that self-defining complexity could
have happened from a puddle of primordial soup. Lots of biologists
have calculated the probability as indistingishable from impossible.
Until someone does show how it could have happened, without
intelligent intervention, robots from outer space, or some master
designer, are as legit a theory as spontaneous generation.
It\'s pretty likely that life began with RNA and eventually proteins et
al. DNA came far later, from the RNA world. Much of the ancient RNA
word still exists, as the underlying machinery of modern DNA-based
critters.
Joe Gwinn
Is there any RNA life around now, independent of DNA? Where did it go?
Some DNA-free bacteria probably still exist, but have not yet been
found. But there are plenty of bacteria that have never been studied,
so don\'t lose hope. They may be only in extreme environments, like
near deep-sea \"smoker\" vents.
.<https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22093146/
\"Does a DNA-less cellular organism exist on Earth?\", Akira Hiyoshi,
Kohji Miyahara, Chiaki Kato, Yasumi Ohshima,
Genes Cells, . 2011 Dec;16(12):1146-58.
doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2443.2011.01558.x. Epub 2011 Nov 17.
Some lab jock should invent some.
Could well be underway, done by the same folk who have been trying to
find the minimum number of genes a bacteria can have. I don\'t recall
the current number, but it was something like a thousand. I laid out
the details in the \"cool book\" thread of mid 2021, as I recall.
Joe Gwinn
https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/how-many-genes-are-necessary-to-create-a-living-cell/
It\'s not said if that cell can reproduce.
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
T
Tom Gardner
Guest
On 15/02/22 10:28, David Brown wrote:
AIUI, phages are extremely specific. That\'s great for
minimising collateral effects, but diagnosing and
selecting the specific phage takes time - which isn\'t
always available in a clinical setting.
However, for farmed fish and similar, I guess the
timescale isn\'t so much of a problem.
On 14/02/2022 10:51, Martin Brown wrote:
On 13/02/2022 17:31, David Brown wrote:
On 13/02/2022 17:51, Martin Brown wrote:
You can haggle about whether or not they are truly alive because they
need to hijack a cell to replicate (at least all the ones I know of do).
There are some viruses that are so simple that they can\'t hijack a
cell\'s replication systems - they hijack another virus\'s hijacking! In
a sense, they are small viruses that infect other large viruses. Fun
stuff.
And little fleas have lesser fleas upon their backs to bite \'em.
Eventually in a quantised world they get too small to be viable.
Viral phages that attack bacteria are also quite interesting and some of
them may yet have therapeutic value. Progress in this field is slow but
steady as the various pieces are found and understood.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01880-6
Bacteriophages were a big research area, especially in Russia (as far as
I have heard) until antibiotics were discovered. Then we all thought we
had won the war on bacteria, so there was no need to pursue the
difficult work with phages. But it turns out the victory declaration
was a little premature, so interest in phages is returning.
A few years ago a lab in Northern Norway was opened as the first (AFAIK)
place mass-producing phages, for treatment of diseases in farmed fish.
That\'s a stepping stone towards using them as treatments more generally.
AIUI, phages are extremely specific. That\'s great for
minimising collateral effects, but diagnosing and
selecting the specific phage takes time - which isn\'t
always available in a clinical setting.
However, for farmed fish and similar, I guess the
timescale isn\'t so much of a problem.
W
whit3rd
Guest
On Saturday, February 12, 2022 at 9:04:08 AM UTC-8, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
False. The \'caution\' you refer to is a social concern, NOT a knowledge-and-understanding
one, thus is not of primary interest in the sciences. The \'should be\' phrase means
you\'re trying to invoke some kind of value judgment, but whether this is true-false,
good-evil, or some religious morality scale, is completely obscure.
Criticism of a science theory is easy: you suggest an improvement. You don\'t
discard bits and invoke cancel-culture concepts to demonize... if you expect to
be taken seriously.
On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 17:43:55 +0100, David Brown
david...@hesbynett.no> wrote:
Science is /always/ incomplete. That\'s part of the point.
Then Science should be cautious about concensus and certainty,
especially about things that are unexplained and not subject to
repeatable experiment.
False. The \'caution\' you refer to is a social concern, NOT a knowledge-and-understanding
one, thus is not of primary interest in the sciences. The \'should be\' phrase means
you\'re trying to invoke some kind of value judgment, but whether this is true-false,
good-evil, or some religious morality scale, is completely obscure.
Criticism of a science theory is easy: you suggest an improvement. You don\'t
discard bits and invoke cancel-culture concepts to demonize... if you expect to
be taken seriously.
S
server
Guest
On Tue, 15 Feb 2022 09:08:33 +0100, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
You\'re not a biologist, and furthermore you weren\'t there.
We talked about DNA and Thai food and stuff.
You\'re not an electronic designer either. Your profession seems to be
\"nasty.\"
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 14/02/2022 22:43, John Larkin wrote:
I took a biologist to lunch today.
And you think that means you know biology?
You\'re not a biologist, and furthermore you weren\'t there.
We talked about DNA and Thai food and stuff.
You\'re not an electronic designer either. Your profession seems to be
\"nasty.\"
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
A
Anthony William Sloman
Guest
On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:45:33 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
<snip>
John Larkin thinks he knows enough to make that claim. He clearly doesn\'t.
> But \"The Science\" of both is incomplete. There remains room for discovery.
But not a lot of room for ill-informed speculation.
As if your opinion is worth posting
Life exists now. It wouldn\'t have existed at the instant of the Big Bang, so it had to have come into existence sometime later. It is observed now, so abiogenenis has has to have happened sometime and to that it extent it has been observed. Exactly how it happened is less obvious.
>The answer is that concensus crushes thinking.
You seem to feel that it crushes your sort of \"thinking\". Sadly, it hasn\'t.
> I seem to believe in evolution more than you do.
You may believe in something you imagine to be evolution, but you don\'t seem to know enough about what the word means to more sophisticated people for this to be a particularly meaningful claim. Or to put it more bluntly, your ideas about \"evolution\" are comically wide of the mark.
--
Bill Sloman. Sydney
On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 16:21:54 +0100, David Brown <david...@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 11/02/2022 16:54, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 15:55:05 +0100, David Brown <david...@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 11/02/2022 14:12, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 06:54:29 GMT, Jan Panteltje <pNaonSt...@yahoo.com> wrote:
<snip>
But like most people who misunderstand science in general, and biology in particular, you mix up evolution and abiogenesis.
Not a bit.
John Larkin thinks he knows enough to make that claim. He clearly doesn\'t.
> But \"The Science\" of both is incomplete. There remains room for discovery.
But not a lot of room for ill-informed speculation.
I doubt if you even understand that they refer to different things.
Of course they do, at least to me. But the anti-creationist concensus seems to blur the boundary, that abiogenesis was itself gradual chemical evolution, which I consider to be absurd.
As if your opinion is worth posting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
This is especially nonsensical:
\"Although the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among scientists, its possible mechanisms are poorly understood.\"
How can something that\'s un-observed and not understood be uncontroversial?
Life exists now. It wouldn\'t have existed at the instant of the Big Bang, so it had to have come into existence sometime later. It is observed now, so abiogenenis has has to have happened sometime and to that it extent it has been observed. Exactly how it happened is less obvious.
>The answer is that concensus crushes thinking.
You seem to feel that it crushes your sort of \"thinking\". Sadly, it hasn\'t.
> I seem to believe in evolution more than you do.
You may believe in something you imagine to be evolution, but you don\'t seem to know enough about what the word means to more sophisticated people for this to be a particularly meaningful claim. Or to put it more bluntly, your ideas about \"evolution\" are comically wide of the mark.
--
Bill Sloman. Sydney
S
server
Guest
On Tue, 15 Feb 2022 08:23:02 +0000, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
Well (I say modestly) we do tend to be charismatic and inspirational.
Good choice on her part.
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 14/02/22 21:43, John Larkin wrote:
Are you a biologist? Do you know one?
I took a biologist to lunch today.
My daughter took an electronic engineer to lunch last week.
This week I hear she is changing profession to electronics design.
Well (I say modestly) we do tend to be charismatic and inspirational.
Good choice on her part.
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye