is life about the survival of the fittest chemistry?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by globali, Jan 29, 2018.

  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It also provides a theoretical mechanism sufficient to account for the emergence of living beings in the first place.
    We have a theory that matches our observations, ready to hand: Darwinian evolution.
    That's why Darwinian theory had such an impact - it showed how that can happen.
    Those who have come to understand Darwinian evolution do see.
     
    Write4U likes this.
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  3. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    No, the principles of Darwinian Evolution apply to all dynamic systems. It is a form of mathematical probabilistic space-time chronology.
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2019
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  5. globali Registered Senior Member

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    The only way i see how Darwinian evolution can create life in the first place is the way i told you.

    Organic and inorganic molecules, together with energy would start reacting. Then the spatial conformations, folding, hydrophobicity, would increase the 3D spatial complexity and equillibrium would have been difficult. Then stable conformations would prevail (membrane covered entities, long nucleotides, packing of nucleotides, fast reacting components, division of heavy organic molecule load containing membrane covered sacs, etc, etc, and so on) in a form of step-wise multi-focal evolution and chemical natural selection that would continue in the long term. Its called the natural history of the reactions.

    And of course any complex process will appear that it is self-organizing or has a purpose....from the perspective narrative of the results (point of view of the results of this process)! Like a self-fullfilling prophecy.

    Do you agree with that?

    This process however as a whole is disordered. Ordered self-organizing organisms emerge only from the perspective narrative of a fraction of resulting reactions that live inside this system, because they cherry pick the systems they like or look like them
     
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  7. globali Registered Senior Member

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    i agree!! that's why i said "mostly".
     
  8. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Does it matter? Reality is what and how we experience it's observable patterns.
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2019
  9. globali Registered Senior Member

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    Theoretically there can be other ways too, like a self-replicating RNA molecule first or other ways, but i don't see how they are more likely than the way i described.

    Lets say that you find the same species of ants in Australia and in the South Pole. You can develop theories and scenarios about how they got transferred from one place to the other.
    One theory might be that one ant was on a leaf and it fell in the ocean.
    Then a turtle got it and transferred it a big further. Then a dolphin, then a shark, then a whale, etc etc. You developed a scenario. You show its not impossible for ants to get from one place to the other, especially if they have plenty of time to do that. It doesn't mean however that things happened that way
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2019
  10. globali Registered Senior Member

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    it doesn't matter to me
     
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Why not? Ants reached every nook and cranny on earth. They are one of the oldest species on earth and their survival capabilities are remarkable. Moreover, many ants and other insects "learned" to fly hundreds of millions of years before birds took flight.

    When a species can be found in several places on earth in various forms, it speaks of its evolutionary success, not the reverse.

    Although I could accept a concept of multiple places of "origin" on earth at different times.
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2019
  12. globali Registered Senior Member

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    I know! But by trying to explain how they got to different continents, you can just create a crazy complicated scenario and show its not impossible to happen. Then you say that given the vast amount of time, thats probably what happened.
    Don't you rather prefer a simple explanation? Like the continents were united at first, or they were transferred through human boats?
     
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Fortunately, the real world is not so limited.
    The ascription of purpose to a Darwinian process would be an error. One hopes that error is rare, among professional evolutionary biologists.
    In the case of ants, we have very good reason to believe that human boats were not involved in the early distribution. So we would choose from other explanations, that better fit the facts.

    I agree that better explanations for things, in general, should be preferred on many grounds. Darwinian theory does not often specify any particular sequence of events, and the specific events leading to the emergence of living beings on this planet remain largely unknown - an interesting and active field.
     
  14. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    I certainly did not do so.

    I simply pointed out that your logic does not hold water. To-wit:

    No idea how you state this with such certainty.
    Life came from non-life. It is not inconceivable that - given similar optimal circumstances - crystals or polymers could self-organize and ultimately self-replicate in a fashion analagous to what lipids did 4Gy ago.

    There is no logic to this.

    Some alien living on a planet 9 billion years after the big Bang argues with his opponent: "Carbon-lipid based life can never evolve in the universe. If it could, it would have done so already." Flash forward a billion years and he's got space-egg all over his face.
     
  15. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Ordered self-organizing systems emerge and are observed from any perspective capable of observing them. They do, actually, exist. Would you prefer to call them subsystems? Nobody will mind.
    They choose to study living beings (or their precursors etc) because that's what they are interested in. What's wrong with that?
     
  16. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Ummmm

    Surely if

    when a ordered system (life from non life) occurs, are you proposing that's IT???

    "OK fellers we have made it as far as slime mould. Cant' see much else for us in the future. Not like we can reach that big grey ball in the sky. But we might feast on that rock over there

    I'm sure no such conversation took place but it seems like that is what you are suggesting

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  17. globali Registered Senior Member

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    There is no problem, but there is a very important thin line here. The question is whether these sub-systems likely belong to a bigger chemical system that is constantly producing disorder and doesn't self organize. In other words, the sum of what you consider life beings might not be increasing its order. In a sense, there does not need to be much progress from the primordial chemistry.

    In terms of chemical reactions, our food is a part of our body.
    In a few years, all our molecules will be substituted by others that we will get from food.
     
  18. globali Registered Senior Member

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    In addition, how can you separate an animal from its symbiotic bacteria? they co-evolve in reality. You have chemical systems, not organisms. if you remove colonic, oral or vaginal bacteria from a person, that person will die.
     
  19. globali Registered Senior Member

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  20. globali Registered Senior Member

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    you forgot to say that it is about the sequence of events that happened before the previous ones were lost. Since we are not talking about living systems yet.....
     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, I firmly believe in prior land bridges allowing simple migration. It's interesting to note that some butterfly species migrate for thousands of miles on upper air streams, to breed where they originated.

    But your intro of the human aspect is a few hundred million years too late....we are relative newcomers to the block.
     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2019
  22. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    You can't.
    Some beneficial symbiotic bacteria have been incorporated in human DNA and have become a part in the whole organism's increasing complexity pattern forming.
     
  23. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Indeed. I conjecture that, in a few decades, we will be more accurately seeing flora and fauna - including humans - as ecologies.
     

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