How Life Began

[fncceo]

Some people think abiogensis required help from magic.

I see no reason to think that, any more than I see reason to invoke magical fairies or sky daddies to explain the formation of a star, or a volcano.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”​

-- Arthur C. Clarke

 

[SweetSue92]

Bible says the universe had a beginning. Science caught up later and changed its beliefs to agree. So at some point life had to originate out of it. So if you want to keep God out of it, here’s your options on how life began.
Mix and match the 3 to whatever quantities you desire to create life:

1. View attachment 669725
2. Temperature

3. Time

Have at it.

It's all magical! "over many years.....these elements combined...."

I have heard many iterations of this. SCIENCE!

 

[Weatherman2020]

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”​

-- Arthur C. Clarke

Clarke is the poster child of how we all reach a technology threshold. First to envision satellites in the late 40’s, he saw no use of the internet 50 years later.

 

[ReinyDays]

OK, what’s the mocked theory that the universe has always existed?

The Steady State Universe? ... that theory has been around and important since at least Einstein's day ... in fact, Einstein's original statement of his three theories of relativity all require the universe to be stock still and not moving ...

The expanding universe came later with Edwin Hubble among some others ...

 

[fncceo]

Clarke is the poster child of how we all reach a technology threshold. First to envision satellites in the late 40’s, he saw no use of the internet 50 years later.

To be fair, very few people foresaw The Internet until it was already on our doorstep.

I worked in telecoms since the '70s and one of my jobs was installing BBN nodes (ARPANET) at Army bases all over the Western States back in the '80s. Even though the backbone of The Internet was there even then, no one every conceived that it would turn into what it did.

Lots of bits and pieces fell into place to make it happen. TCP/IP, cheap routers, HTTP, audio and video codecs, domain services, search engine algorithms. Not one of those things was created with the ultimate goal of creating a global network of information and entertainment, it just fell together.

Even sci-fi writers with much bigger imaginations than I ever had never saw it coming.

 

[ReinyDays]

It's all magical! "over many years.....these elements combined...."

I have heard many iterations of this. SCIENCE!

Some of us are open to alternate scientific theories ... and I think it's a shame none have been put forward ... but this is biology, and biology is famous for not being particularly rigid ... these are people who got C's in college math ... so not the brightest in the world ...

2 CH4 --> C2H6 + H2

... is kitchen counter chemistry ... so there's proof of concept ... what do you have? ... chemists get B's in college math ...

 

[Weatherman2020]

I agree. Minister Doug will agree that "the bible says..." is all one needs to know. However, Minister Doug needs to read the Sumerian and Babylonian creation stories, among others, which predate the Genesis fable.

Scientist Doug wants to know why atoms would bother to stare at a sunset, paint a waterfall or listen to music.

 

[fncceo]

why atoms would bother to stare at a sunset, paint a waterfall or listen to music.

Individual atoms don't.

But large, complex collections of them certainly do ...

 

[Weatherman2020]

Individual atoms don't.

But large, complex collections of them certainly do ...

View attachment 670121

Funny how they communicate with each other to do meaningless things.

 

[fncceo]

Funny how they communicate with each other to do meaningless things.

Nothing meaningless about a sunset or a symphony. They are awesome.

 

[ReinyDays]

To be fair, very few people foresaw The Internet until it was already on our doorstep.

I worked in telecoms since the '70s and one of my jobs was installing BBN nodes (ARPANET) at Army bases all over the Western States back in the '80s. Even though the backbone of The Internet was there even then, no one every conceived that it would turn into what it did.

Lots of bits and pieces fell into place to make it happen. TCP/IP, cheap routers, HTTP, audio and video codecs, domain services, search engine algorithms. Not one of those things was created with the ultimate goal of creating a global network of information and entertainment, it just fell together.

Even sci-fi writers with much bigger imaginations than I ever had never saw it coming.

Don't forget Al Gore spearheading the congressional effort to provide seed money ...

My first experience with this is understandably the first time I had any experience with a computer ... my middle school rented a portable terminal that connected to the mainframe at a local high school ... do you remember text-based adventure games? ... ha ha ha ha ...

Next were dedicated phone lines ... two for full duplex communications ... alas the machine in Panama City, FL and the one in San Diego were both PDP-34's ... so they could send PDP-34 commands directly, so technically not an internet ...

Pornographers knew exactly where this new fangled internet was going ... same direction photography went when it was brand new ...

 

[Weatherman2020]

Nothing meaningless about a sunset or a symphony. They are awesome.

You have defective atoms.

 

[ReinyDays]

Funny how they communicate with each other to do meaningless things.

<nitpick> the things they do aren't meaningless to them ... just saying .... </nitpick>

 

[fncceo]

You have defective atoms.

My atoms are awesome ... they're kosher.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”​

-- Arthur C. Clarke

Right, which tells us it isn't magic. That's kind of the important part.

Though i don't think this applies to a natural process like abiogenesis.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Scientist Doug wants to know why atoms would bother to stare at a sunset, paint a waterfall or listen to music.

But not you. You don't want to know.

You want to call it magic and be done with it.

 

[alang1216]

To be fair, very few people foresaw The Internet until it was already on our doorstep.

I worked in telecoms since the '70s and one of my jobs was installing BBN nodes (ARPANET) at Army bases all over the Western States back in the '80s. Even though the backbone of The Internet was there even then, no one every conceived that it would turn into what it did.

Lots of bits and pieces fell into place to make it happen. TCP/IP, cheap routers, HTTP, audio and video codecs, domain services, search engine algorithms. Not one of those things was created with the ultimate goal of creating a global network of information and entertainment, it just fell together.

Even sci-fi writers with much bigger imaginations than I ever had never saw it coming.

It wasn't until someone gave me a demo of Netscape in the early 80s that I got my first inclination of what was to come. Even then I never truly guessed the scope the the event.

 

[Hollie]

Scientist Doug wants to know why atoms would bother to stare at a sunset, paint a waterfall or listen to music.

I would tell scientist Doug it's because humans have evolved (<---oh dear, I wrote that word), a brain that developed sentience and language skills. I believe it was Carl Sagan who popularized the term “sentience”, an ability to perceive one’s environment and their place in it. Our sentience is a product of more complex brains as opposed to other animals. life evolved, competition for that life implemented social structures, sentience ignited that social structure to a more and more complicated degree and allowed for technology to extend the perceptions of humans as a part of the natural world.

"the bible says..." is a bit sketchy when viewed in terms of a 6 000 year old planet.

 

[Hollie]

Nothing meaningless about a sunset or a symphony. They are awesome.

Artists, composers, science... it's what defines western civilization.

 

[alang1216]

Bible says the universe had a beginning. Science caught up later and changed its beliefs to agree. So at some point life had to originate out of it. So if you want to keep God out of it, here’s your options on how life began.
Mix and match the 3 to whatever quantities you desire to create life:

1. View attachment 669725

Beyond these it likely doesn't matter about the trace elements.

2. Temperature

-100 to +200 degrees Fahrenheit. The range is not as important as the variation and a limit on the extremes.

3. Time

A billion years or so.

Have at it.

OK. Not sure what that proves but that is what conditions almost certainly gave rise to life on Earth.