There was a recent study that measured 100 mega volt/cm electric fields in the water around the DNA; see link below. You need physical chemistry to explain that, with physical chemistry part physics and part chemistry. The fact still remains that hydrogen atoms have extra potential at the nuclear level, due to lack of fusion and mass burn, from the beginning of the universe. For example, there is less proton repulsion since there is only one positive charge in the hydrogen nucleus. This alters the wave function for the nucleus. This extra mass potential and lower repulsive charge potential, impacts the potential energy of the nucleus. If you assume a unified theory of force, the hydrogen proton has unique profile based on the unified force. Water is interesting in that quantum tunneling often happens in pairs, whereas in other material this happens as singles. https://phys.org/news/2016-08-ultrastrong-ultrafast-localwater-electric-fields.html I understand there is well funded, blue sky research, that looks at alternate life, such as life in other solvents. I like blue sky science and research since this can be very interesting. However, nobody, as of yet, has even proven or demonstrated a single tangible example of life in other solvents, other that water. Blue sky research is nevertheless performed because it can lead to new understanding, even if the original goal is not met. However, just because it is funded, does not mean it is real or a done deal. It may be funded with hope it can lead to new understanding with commercial benefits. In terms of pure science, there is no proof life in other solvents is even possible. We can could blue sky research about the possibility of Big Foot. This may never pan out, but it may lead to new understanding in terms of evolution. It should be funded and discussed, but not because it is a done deal. Only water and life has hard proof. I am sticking to the hard observational facts of life and not allowing blue sky out of the box science, to be treated as a done deal. Once you can make this distinction then, it makes more sense to extrapolate water out of the box, into the blue sky, but this has a solid foundation in physical chemistry and in life.
Relative to life on earth, water is not jut the solvent for life, but water also acts as the energy floor for life. When you have metabolism, water is typically one the final products. The energy buck stops at the water floor. One large problem, with all organic solvents postulated for life, is they contain extra energy, relative to water, and therefore create an unstable energy floor. If you had a life form in alcohol, what stops that life from burning its own solvent for energy? Life in water, cannot burn water. This very stable floor fixes one variable from day one. If you could burn the solvent, due to potential energy residuals, this variable can change, throwing off the balance previously, achieved. One analogy for life in other solvent would be like living in a pure oxygen environment. This would be a very reactive environment, where slight sparks can cause your house to burn down. Metals would corrode at a faster rate. Water as a stable energy floor is like adding 78% nitrogen so there is more control over combustion and corrosion. With pure oxygen, things become even more complicated, with life already complicated. Other solvents, like ammonia can form hydrogen bonds, but ammonia has too much energy to be a stable solvent; ammonia can burn. Water has hydrogen bonding, while being the lowest energy floor. Water maximizes the energy bandwidth for any organic food and stays the same over tine, so life is more efficient and can build upon the past. A very interesting observation has to due with graphene, which is a 2-D layer of pure carbon atoms that is stronger than diamond. The reason is carbon in diamond has 4 single bonds, while graphene has three partial double bonds. Graphene is a material for the future that is impermeable to all gases and solvents, except for water. Water and carbon go way back and are designed to work together.
Nature is not a designer, if that's what you mean. As I said, nature just is what it is. It has no intentions, no plans, no motivations. It just does what it does and the result is reality.
context: knowledge / research physical - Either pertaining to physics in particular or the whole category of physical sciences. world - A model of the extrospective environment as may be featured in or outputted by the above discipline(s). - - - - - - - context: existence / ontological speculation physical - Referencing a philosophical conception of sensible or corporeal attributes that may splinter into subcategories or differing interpretations of itself. world - A cosmos; set of existing entities. Or some type of domain (not necessarily concerning the former).
What's your standard for making such assertions? An arbitrary whim? A mutable metric that alters in response to each reply? Or a private benchmark kept perpetually hidden from public eye, as if mistaken for a corporate secret or Trump's tax returns?
So you think the stars, or the mineral composition of a piece of granite, are not part of nature? Really?
Atheists buy into a god or goddess of random events, therefore they can't see how life is ordered with water a key part of that design. They believe in the random appearance of life, with random solvents, yet they have never proven this is possible with an example. Their belief is based on faith in their god of chaos and casinos to make anything happen, periodically. Water has unique properties which makes life possible. Water is like the Swiss Army knife of the chemical world and is the foundation of what we call chemistry.
Wellwisher, no one disputes the importance of water to life as we understand it. To argue on that matter is a strawman. What we dispute is the claim that there is design behind what we see, that hydrogen and oxygen were deliberately and purposefully created as they were so as to be able to form water and from there allow life to arise, etc. What we dispute is the argument from design, not that water is important, nay essential, to life as we know it. Anything regarding design is purely unscientific speculation.