Chemical evolution:

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by paddoboy, Aug 7, 2020.

  1. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    27,543
    Many don't see it that way.
    Nup, wrong...Abiogenesis is certain...the pathway is what is in question.
    You seem to be taking this rather personally James. I'm absolutely clear on my side.
    It ought to be clear that even before the discovery of GW's or even the CMBR, that GR and the BB were still scientific theories.
    No we don't have the complete methodology and pathway to Abiogensis, but that does not mean it isn't the only scientific answer we have.
    Take it easy James.
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2021
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  3. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Want some advice James? [of course you don't] but anyway.
    I started this thread until it was derailed and changed into a conflict about ID and creationism, and the natural and only scientific answer of Abiogenesis.
    A shame you are letting personal issues get the better of you. And I'm sure others are now well aware of that.
     
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  5. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    OK.
    Genesis
    (A creation myth or creation story explains how the universe started, how the earth came to be, and why there are humans. Creation myths are usually part of religions and mythologies. Very often, creation myths say that humans were made by a god, spirit or other supreme being.)

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    Famous painting of God creating Adam, in the Sistine Chapel, by Michelangelo
    https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Genesis

    Question: does this exactly explain the origin of life?

    Biogenesis and abiogenesis
    Spontaneous generation and its disproof
    Main article: Spontaneous generation
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogenesis

    Question: does this exactly explain the origin of life?

    Abiogenesis
    (Origin of life" redirects here. For non-scientific views on the origins of life, see Creation myth.)

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    The earliest known life-forms are putative fossilized microorganisms, found in hydrothermal vent precipitates, that may have lived as early as 4.28 Gya (billion years ago), relatively soon after the oceans formed 4.41 Gya, and not long after the formation of the Earth 4.54 Gya.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

    Question: does this exactly explain the origin of life?

    Earliest known life forms
    (For the "Origin of life", see Abiogenesis, Astrobiology, Biogenesis, and Panspermia.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earliest_known_life_forms

    Question: does this exactly explain the origin of life?
     
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  7. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    39,397
    It's all that's needed. There's no argument left. I have proved my point many times over, by now.

    You're just doing a Trump and pretending you won the election, but most of the people here don't believe the lies.
    I believe I have addressed the content of almost all your links, including highlighting all the places where they support my position and refute yours. Probably your ego doesn't allow you to see or remember those posts.

    Knowingly telling lies is a breach of our site rules, paddoboy. You crossed that line in this thread quite a while ago.

    You're afraid to post in the sexism thread. That doesn't mean you can bring that discussion here. It's off topic.

    Grow up and admit you were mistaken. Take some responsibility for your errors for a change. Give your enormous ego a rest. It keeps getting in the way. By now, it's got so big that it is actually blinding you to obvious real-world facts.
     
  8. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    Moderator note:

    paddoboy
    is now excluded from posting in this thread.
     
  9. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    39,397
    Write4U:

    I don't know why you (and others) keep repeatedly posting the first paragraph of the wikipedia article on abiogenesis, as if that somehow refutes something I wrote. Repetition doesn't make an argument any stronger than it was the first 100 times it was posted.

    What do you mean by "exactly"?

    How could a disproved idea explain anything?

    No. Obviously not. It is speculative. I have highlighted some giveaway words in the text.

    How could it?
     
  10. Yazata Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,902
    I asked Paddoboy, "Why must the true answer to life's origins be "scientific"?"

    Write4U pops in with:

    You write that like that's something that you know for a fact. So how do you know it? How would you justify that belief? You weren't back there at the origin of life watching what happened.

    It seems to me that you and Paddoboy are confusing methodological and metaphysical naturalism.

    The former is an initial heuristic premise in science.

    A heuristic is a method for seeking knowledge. An inquiry strategy. In the natural sciences, the inquiry strategy is to restrict one's self to asking questions about the natural world, and then to seek natural answers for those questions. That's methodological naturalism and it's one of the things that's kind of definitive of what natural science is.

    But notice that science's naturalism was baked in at the beginning as an initial methodological premise. It isn't knowledge about the ultimate nature of reality. It's how science has decided to proceed. It's an inquiry strategy for attacking questions.

    You and Paddoboy seem to want to argue that since natural science (by definition) seeks only natural answers and accepts only natural answers as scientific, that natural answers are the only answers that can possibly be true. You imagine that science somehow guarantees that reality itself must be naturalistic.

    What the two of you seem to me to be doing is slippy-sliding from methodological naturalism (an inquiry strategy) to metaphysical naturalism (a belief about the true nature of reality itself), hoping that nobody will notice. And perhaps without noticing yourselves. And metaphysical naturalism is a belief that I don't think that either of you can justify.

    Metaphysical naturalism is the belief that reality can only consist of those things that appear in natural science's accounts of natural events. Since natural science set out at the beginning to seek natural causes (insert smoke and mirrors here) we conclude that natural causes are all that can possibly exist. A heuristic has suddenly turned itself into an ontology.

    It seems to me that many atheists are fond of making that particular move. It's one of the things that distinguish them from agnostics. Agnostics are much more willing than this sort of atheist to admit that they don't have answers to all of the big metaphysical questions and they doubt that anyone does.

    Hence my question to Paddoboy: "Why must the true answer to life's origins be scientific?"
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2021
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    To show a train of thought.
    This seems to recount a lot of detail of exactly how it happened. Is it wrong?
    OK, Biogenesis has been disproved.
    It is not speculative, only the dates are putative, the physical evidence is incontrovertible.
    They live in almost every habitat from the poles to the equator, deserts, geysers, rocks, and the deep sea. Some are adapted to extremes such as very hot or very cold conditions, others to high pressure, and a few, such as Deinococcus radiodurans, to high radiation environments. Microorganisms also make up the microbiota found in and on all multicellular organisms. There is evidence that 3.45-billion-year-old Australian rocks once contained microorganisms, the earliest direct evidence of life on Earth. [/quote]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism

    This wide dispersion suggests that a long time must have passed from the actual origin of life and living things.
    But could there have been a living thing before then, or by age alone was the ecosphere purely chemical ?

    Biosphere vs Ecosphere - What's the difference?
    https://wikidiff.com/ecosphere/biosphere

    That's deep:
    life found 11km below sea level in deepest known point on the surface of the Earth .
    Steve Connor@SteveAConnor Sunday 17 March 2013 19:35
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...eepest-known-point-surface-earth-8538107.html

    Is here where life originated? How primitive would these organisms have to be to survive these extreme environments.

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    Thomas Shafee / CC BY 4.0 / Wikimedia CommonsScence

    By
    Regina Bailey, Updated January 22, 2020


    Glycolysis
    • Glycolysis is the process of breaking down glucose.
    • Glycolysis can take place with or without oxygen.
    • Glycolysis produces two molecules of pyruvate, two molecules of ATP, two molecules of NADH, and two molecules of water.
    • Glycolysis takes place in the cytoplasm.
    • There are 10 enzymes involved in breaking down sugar. The 10 steps of glycolysis are organized by the order in which specific enzymes act upon the system.
    https://www.thoughtco.com/extremophiles-extreme-organisms-373905#:

    If everything physical is chemical, why would there be a question about chemical origins, i.e Abiogenesis?
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2021
  12. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    I believe in the purely mathematical Abiogenesis, because I believe in the Mathematical essence of the Universe, not in an Intelligent Designer, which concept is so complicated that no one is able to even address its fundamental properties, let alone its "motivated actions".

    Everyone knows about physical values and the mathematical interaction of elements, i.e. Chemistry. It is the stuff of the natural world, our very existence, and incidentally our Science .

    One thing is abundantly clear;
    It did not start with "irreducible complexity", which means it started with 1 + 1 = 2

    I keep it real simple as per Occam's advice, i e. it did not start with Adam and Eve.
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2021
  13. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    Write4U:

    You're trying to import your pet theory into an unrelated thread again. Stop it. Keep it in your mathematical universe thread. And anyway, this discussion is not about your personal beliefs. At least, it shoudn't be about those.

    Is the biblical creation story from Genesis wrong? Yes, demonstrably.

    No. The word "putative" there is not modifying the date, but the word "microorganisms". What is being said is that it is speculated that microorganisms might have formed at a particular time.

    When you talk about already-existing life, you're not talking about abiogenesis. One you have life, abiogenesis must have already happened, somehow.


    Nobody knows for sure. This is why there is no theory of abiogenesis.

    I've already walked you through what chemistry is. Please read my previous post on that point.
     
  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    There is no scientific dispute about Abiogenesis at all. The only dispute is philosophical.
    Logically I am convinced that Abiogenesis is fundamental to all life.

    As I indicated before, IMO this entire discussion is based on a category error.

    There is creation category, based on Genesis.
    There is evolution category, based on Abiogenesis.

    The distinction is clear and indisputable.
     
  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    If other people can can import their pet religious theory and cite ID or Creationism without penalty, I should be able to import the opposing perspective of a physical universe and cite mathematics of physics without penalty.

    To me this smacks of persecution. I'm out of this one....

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  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Neither of those is at all likely to have emerged from a substrate of non-living entities. Diatoms are very sophisticated beings with complex genomes, evidence of endosymbiotic events in their evolutionary history, and multiple stages in their life cycles; viruses resemble pieces of the machinery of living cells much more closely than they resemble anything abiotic.
    - - - -
    This exchange is what this creationist is referring to (it follows from my observation that I have never personally encountered anyone who both understands Darwinian theory and dismisses it):
    That would be yet another attempt to explain (briefly) some relevant aspect of Darwinian theory to a poster whose questions reveal a more or less total misconception of it.

    The poster demands, among other confusions, an explanation of what "the first life" was - based on my understanding of Darwinian theory. It's a common type of question one gets from ID folks - how do you explain the first eye, the first woodpecker, the first cell, the first whatever. It's common because ID folks in general never bothered to learn even the basics of Darwinian evolutionary theory, and don't know how it's supposed to work.

    From the theoretical perspective: in Darwinian theory there is no such thing even likely, let alone necessarily - regardless of the physical facts realistically assumed.
    In physical fact: no one has enough information to do more than guess at what the earliest quasi-living or near-life entities were like, regardless of the theory employed.

    And that is the typical situation one faces when dealing with creationist objections to Darwinian theory: they don't understand Darwinian theory in the first place, and often seem confused about the role of theory itself - any theory. They are objecting to an invention of their own, because it doesn't produce or account for facts no one has discovered yet.

    On a science forum.
     
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    I can see these are already down the evolutionary line from "origin", although viruses are not even considered to be living organisms, so they must be very primitive if they were at all a common ancestor to other archea.

    From what I have read, cyanobacteria are very, very old and must have appeared very soon after the earth established an atmosphere. Even then this atmosphere did not need to be uniform.

    Cyanobacteria: Classification, Reproduction and Parasexuality
    (i) Cyanobacteria can grow in diverse habitats, but one striking feature in their occurrence and predominance in habitats alternating between photo-aerobic and photo-anaerobic conditions can be correlated with their preference for low oxygen tension and low redox-potential. These properties stem from their recently discovered dual-capacity of oxygenic photosynthesis and facultative an-oxygenic photosynthesis,

    (ii) The cyanobacteria possess various morphologically distinctive structures, e.g., akinetes and heterocysts.

    (iii) The main cell wall constituent of cyanobacteria is peptidoglycan.

    (iv) The cyanobacterial cytoplasm is traversed extensively by flattened vesicular structures called thylakoids or lamellae, the photosynthetic sites,

    (v) The principal photosynthetic pigment of all cyanobacteria is chlorophyll a. Besides, they possess β-carotene and other accessory pigments, namely, phycobiliproteins. The phycobiliproteins are phycocyanin (PC), allophycocyanin (AP), allophycocyanin B (APB), and phycoerythrin, and

    (vi) Most filamentous cyanobacteria show a gliding motility at some stage of development; they lack flagella.

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    https://www.biologydiscussion.com/b...fication-reproduction-and-parasexuality/54803

    How far further does one have to go back to reach pure non-living bio-chemistry and bio-chemical polymers?
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2021
  18. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    I don't know what you're trying to say when you say there's no scientific dispute about abiogenesis.

    If you only mean that scientists agree that life probably started from non-life, then there's no dispute.
    If, on the other hand, you're talking about the details of how life started from non-life, there's a lot of dispute. The fact that there are competing theories and no consensus on which one (or more) of them is right is just more evidence that it is false to claim that scientists have "a" theory of abiogenesis.

    Then your logic is shoddy. It's a matter of evidence, not logic.

    Yours, maybe.

    Do you understand the point I have been making all along in this thread, or don't you? Do you understand why I take issue with paddoboy's claims?

    If so, please tell me what argument I have put against paddoboy's position, in your own words. Also tell me whether you agree with that argument. If you don't, tell me why you disagree.

    There's no point in discussing this with you when you don't seem to understand what my objection is.
     
  19. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Viruses are parasitic - parasites in general are "more evolved" (farther from origin, later emergent) than their hosts, not less.
    They are not "primitive", but rather "simple" - not the same thing.
    I doubt that anything extant would be an independent form of life "more primitive" than a generic bacterium or archaean cell. Too much competition, too heavy predation, etc., from the unicellular biome. It would have to be well hidden and widespread, both.

    If curious, I would look in the symbionts of colonial unicells, especially those symbionts reduced to organelles or structural components, for clues to the nature of the more primitive or earlier living beings.
     
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  20. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Which of the sciences are having a disagreement about abiogenesis? Quantum, physiscs? chemistry? mineralogy? biology? There may be disagreement about time and place, but AFAIK, there is no dispute about the definition of abiogenesis itself.

    The only dispute is between Theism (creation) and Science (evolution) As I said, its a philosophical dispute.
    Natural Evolution or Intelligent Design, that's it. There is no third category.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2021
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    IMO, it is you who does not understand Paddo. I do and I agree with him.
    As I said, I believe you are committing a category error. Paddo can confirm if I understand the thrust of his argument.

    Once there was only chemistry. Then life evolved (emerged) from chemistry. Abiogenesis.
    The actual process of how is a different story.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2021
  22. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    Basic mineralogy
    S.K. Haldar, in Introduction to Mineralogy and Petrology (Second Edition), 2020

    3.1 Introduction
    The various branches of mineralogy can broadly be grouped as follows:

    1. Crystallography studies crystal forms, that is, forms in which the minerals crystallize, as well as their internal structure, relations, and distribution of atoms, ions, or ionic groups in the crystal lattice.

    2. Physical mineralogy is the study of physical properties of minerals, such as cohesion cleavage, elasticity, color, luster, streak, hardness, and average density (Table 1.1).

    3. Optical, thermal, and magnetic properties, electrical conductivity, radioactivity, and so on.

    4. Chemical mineralogy is the study of chemical formula (Table 1.1), percentage contribution of individual elements, and other chemical properties of the minerals.

    5. Classification of minerals based on metallic/nonmetallic type (iron ore and quartz), chemistry (oxides, sulfides, arsenide, and silicates).

    6. Descriptive mineralogy deals with the classification of minerals into groups based on their common properties, mostly chemical and structural properties.

    7. Environmental mineralogy narrates the complex and very different conditions of the origin of the minerals, explores the possible hazards associated with specific minerals/elements or industry, if any, optimum consumption, recycling, and sustainable development.


    https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/mineralogy
     
  23. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    I asked you to summarise, in your own words, what my objection is to paddoboy's position, so that I can confirm that you understand my point.

    So far, you have been unable to do that.

    Do you intend to try, or are you intending to continue to make false assumptions?
     

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