Is life a gamble? Scientist models universe to find out

[Catastrophe]

I must say that I had not detected any creationist propaganda here. I am probably as opposed to it as you. Still, each to his own. We all have the right to choose. We can all like a person whilst not liking some of their ideas.
Rod - may I ask you if you hold creationist opinions. If you do, that is all right with me although I shall oppose them if you do
Cat

 

[dfjchem721]

Cat noted "I must say that I had not detected any creationist propaganda here."

That is the insidious nature of their propaganda. Some of them are very careful not to expose their true beliefs so as to interact with the rest of us. Clearly we must put on some filters for certain posters as they become exposed.

Just one point to remember : Unless you know for certain otherwise, we must assume that everything they try to tell us is suspect.

If in doubt, label them creationist unless you know otherwise.

 

[rod]

When it comes to abiogenesis and chemical based evolution for the origin of life as science based and as I think, should be observed operating in nature (today) like the evidence for the heliocentric solar system, creationists think very differently.

"...4. Chemical evolution (also called abiogenesis and the origin of life) refers to the processes that presumably generated the initial life forms. According to this model, chemical selection transformed a complex chemical mixture of simple compounds into protocellular entities that evolved to yield the first true cells. The scientific problems associated with chemical evolution are legion.5 Almost no one would dispute the assertion that currently there is no real explanation for the origin of life based on chemical evolution, though researchers in this area may claim that we have some clues as to how life may have gotten started. Some of these clues include the discovery of various chemical and physical processes that could conceivably contribute to an evolutionary origin of life. For example, scientists have demonstrated in laboratory settings that chemical routes exist that can yield most of life’s building blocks, starting with simple chemical materials that would have been present on early Earth. Yet, it is questionable whether these chemical and physical processes would ever be productive under the complex chemical and physical settings of early Earth. These reactions work well in the laboratory because organic chemists carefully control the conditions. They perform chemical reactions under highly pristine conditions—carefully adjusting the concentrations of the reactants, controlling the order of addition, excluding any possible chemical interference, adjusting the pH and temperature of the reaction, and so on. This type of control would never exist on early Earth. In other words, the involvement of intelligent agents in the design of these so-called prebiotic simulation experiments plays a necessary role. Ironically, in trying to understand chemical evolution, this research provides empirical evidence that life must originate via the work of a Mind. This provocative conclusion is affirmed by work in synthetic biology. One of the goals of this exciting new area is to create artificial cells. It is immediately evident that creating biochemical systems and assembling them into protocells requires significant effort by highly trained and highly skilled researchers. More importantly, it requires ingenuity on the part of the investigators, who base their research strategy on decades of accrued knowledge and understanding of biochemistry.6", ref - Cabal, T., Falk, D., & Rana, F. (2017). Biological Evolution: What Is It? Does It Explain Life’s History? In Old-earth or evolutionary creation? discussing origins with reasons to believe and biologos (pp. 128–132). Westmont, IL: InterVarsity Press.

 

[Catastrophe]

Well, thank you for that lengthy reply which, I admit, I have difficulty understanding - particularly with reference to dfjchem721's point. On that, 7 of 1 do you want to interpret for me please?
Rod, as I said, I don't really care a monkey's rear what anyone believes or does not believe. It is up to them. If there is any hidden agenda here, it has not affected me one iota.

So, chaps, I am happy to carry on our discussions as before.
By the way did I tell you that I am a Nazi extremist?
Well, I didn't because I'm not

Knuckles rapped all round for going off topic!

 

[Catastrophe]

I have only one question, and this is not meant to be facetious, but will likely end up contentious. How many multiuniverses are there? If ours is the only one, how do we know that?

Opening the door to 1E+500 different universes in one multiuniverse implies to some people an infinite number of multiuniverses, ad infinitum. Not saying this is wrong, just wondering about the modelling.

We have no way of knowing - in our present state of understanding. According to my confidence in the human race, no foreseeable change in that prognosis.

 

[Catastrophe]

The two obvious options for the appearance of life on earth, or anywhere else it might arise :

1) Abiogensis (the scientific rationale) - life from chemicals by natural processes.

2) Supernatural (the creationist rationale) - life from "The Magic Wand" processes.

1) Scientific rationale has proven many aspects of the natural world by experimental evidence and its reproducibility. The more complex a phenomena, the more difficult it is to explain. (Difficulty of explanation is not a reason to deny rational proposals.) Which is why there is so much debate about abiogensis, and the Big Bang, etc. With scientific rationale, facts and evidence from many observations are usually required for a consensus view among scientists, which is of course how science progresses. Without consensus view, science lacks confidence, and thereby validity: "We see, therefore we believe."

So, for some of us "Seeing is believing."

2) Supernatural rationale is a cake walk. Just call up your god or gods and ALL answers are immediately provided (best part - no proofs required!). For this approach, reality is not only irrelevant, it is often scorned as blasphemy. Only faith matters. Faith tends to deny scientific realities because they must be wrong if they do not conform to the supernatural dogma (they usually don't). The supernatural rationale validation: "We don't care what science says, it must be wrong."

So, for others of us: "You don't have to see anything, just keep the faith and it must be true."

What a quandary we all face.

Hmmmm.............I am going with option 1.

What a quandary we all face.

Hmmmm.............I am going with option 1.

 

[Mart943]

Cat, you must realize that rod may be an outlier for creationists. There is not one box fits all sizes here. But just to review, their Central Dogma is that The Bible is the literal interpretation of all things.

Most creationists peg the age of the earth at ca. 8,000 years. This is counting back through all the events of their bible and "old testament", with countless Mulligans along the way. But rod talks about all this cosmology stuff like he really believes it. I suspect he has been playing some kind of game all along.

Trying to debate such people is the definition of "an exercise in futility". Drawn out proofs as you are trying will have no impact on creationists. They have an out for everything you throw at them. Carefully honed responses like "there are no fossils of any original cell from 4 billion years ago, so origin of life must be supernatural". Total nonsense, of course, which gave me my answer before he officially came out of the closet.

And be careful of what you read from them as their commentary must be guided by a powerful Hand beyond anything we can imagine, or debate. That is the glory of creationists:

No proofs required.

Some of them attempt to cling to facts, however much these facts might deny the supernatural. Real nature has no place in their logic stream.

One thing is certain : they are a remarkable study in denial.

The following item on "Discovery" seems to answer the original question. " One of life's building blocks could have originated in outer space. Astronomers simulated the clouds of gas and dust that are strewn between stars out in the cosmos and found that their chemical reactions produced nucleobases: the building blocks of DNA. " It is then a simple matter for such building blocks to arrive on earth via meteorite, or during our creation. So, tools for creation must be everywhere, with a suitable environment being the only requirement to start life anywhere.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

So, tools for creation must be everywhere, with a suitable environment being the only requirement to start life anywhere.

I think science has been satisfied for identifying and noting the distribution of the "building blocks" of living matter.

But, we still have not settled on how those building blocks got assembled and "life" got "turned on" in the assemblage.

The conditions on Earth before there was life here (as far as we can tell from fossils) was much different from the conditions that were created after life occurred, which eventually seems to have greatly altered the Earth's environment.

I think there have been numerous experiments to see if "new" life can be created in various mixes of chemicals under various conditions, with no successes reported so far.

So, my thinking is that either (1) we are missing something about the necessary conditions, or (2) even when the necessary conditions exist, there is not an instantaneous assemblage of a live entity. Perhaps there is a low probability of a life form assembling in a specific amount of time, and that probability is so low that we just don't wait the millions of years for it to have a high probability for it to happen during our short-term lab experiments.

On the other hand, perhaps there is "new" life being assembled all the time, even today on Earth in some environments, but we don't detect it because it looks so similar to the break-down products of the life that we can detect. And, the "old" life might be eating the "new" life as soon as it is assembled, just like we know that living things eat the ingredients that living things are assembled from in order to grow and reproduce.

We will probably get some better understanding of this when we get to thoroughly explore Mars.

 

[billslugg]

Oceans formed perhaps 3.7B years ago, the first life about 3.6B ya. It may have taken perhaps 100 million years for the chemicals to form the first life. Do not be disappointed if we have been unable to replicate that despite 70 odd years of trying.

 

[Mart943]

The following item on "Discovery" seems to answer the original question. " One of life's building blocks could have originated in outer space. Astronomers simulated the clouds of gas and dust that are strewn between stars out in the cosmos and found that their chemical reactions produced nucleobases: the building blocks of DNA. " It is then a simple matter for such building blocks to arrive on earth via meteorite, or during our creation. So, tools for creation must be everywhere, with a suitable environment being the only requirement to start life anywhere.

There has clearly been several waves of different 'human' tribes. Possibly, some arrived from outside our earth and others evolved here over many years. How else can you account for 60,000 years of Aboriginal population of Australasia. How can you reconcile the Aztecs civilization with just 6,000 years since day 1? Should I continue, or do you agree with my message? I believe historians will one day discover the real origin of the people we call Vikings. You know, Lief Ericson, the son of Eric the Red. He was the first known European to arrive in North America - not Columbus who arrived in West Indies about 500 - 600 years later. Were the Chinese the original earth-based human descendants of Neanderthals, with Europeans following? Which other races are descended from Neanderthals?

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Mart943, You should read-up on the latest paleontology of hominids (humans and human ancestors after splitting from the apes).

Briefly, human linage seems to go back aa few million years, with fire usage maybe about the last million years. (See https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220627100154.htm .) The fossil record looks like there were several waves of increasingly evolved human ancestors that left Africa and moved into Europe and Asia, mingling with, interbreeding with, and ultimately replacing the previous populations that came out of Africa earlier.

The species/races before modern humans seem to have been the Neanderthals in Europe and Denisovans in Asia. There are still Neanderthal genes in most Europeans and Denisovan genes in most Asians, with notable variations among "races" of modern humans. The current residents of Africa seem to have little (but some) Neanderthal genes, indicating some back migration.

It looks like modern humans were the first hominids to reach the Americas, probably around 25,000 years ago. They may have come on foot, or perhaps by boats, or both. There were several waves of those, too. Today we see "Indians" and "Inuits" (Eskimos) in the Americas that were clearly different waves of migration. There may have been some people coming from the Southern Pacific into South America as well. The structured civilizations that developed in the Americas (e.g., Inca, Maya, Aztec, Mound Builders) probably carried earlier knowledge of such behaviors from Asia as they came to the Americas. So it is not a matter of different subhuman species independently developing into humans with civilizations in multiple parts of the world during the last few thousand years. Civilizations based on farming and mining developed relatively recently all around the world, but at different rates at different places. Some survived and some were overrun by others. Frankly, it looks like humans have been overrunning each others' cultures for a long time before we were able to write down the history that records only the more recent of such events.

There does not seem to be any evidence of any humans arriving "from outside our earth". Or any need for any cultural attributes to have come from aliens.

 

[Mart943]

Mart943, You should read-up on the latest paleontology of hominids (humans and human ancestors after splitting from the apes).

Briefly, human linage seems to go back aa few million years, with fire usage maybe about the last million years. (See https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220627100154.htm .) The fossil record looks like there were several waves of increasingly evolved human ancestors that left Africa and moved into Europe and Asia, mingling with, interbreeding with, and ultimately replacing the previous populations that came out of Africa earlier.

The species/races before modern humans seem to have been the Neanderthals in Europe and Denisovans in Asia. There are still Neanderthal genes in most Europeans and Denisovan genes in most Asians, with notable variations among "races" of modern humans. The current residents of Africa seem to have little (but some) Neanderthal genes, indicating some back migration.

It looks like modern humans were the first hominids to reach the Americas, probably around 25,000 years ago. They may have come on foot, or perhaps by boats, or both. There were several waves of those, too. Today we see "Indians" and "Inuits" (Eskimos) in the Americas that were clearly different waves of migration. There may have been some people coming from the Southern Pacific into South America as well. The structured civilizations that developed in the Americas (e.g., Inca, Maya, Aztec, Mound Builders) probably carried earlier knowledge of such behaviors from Asia as they came to the Americas. So it is not a matter of different subhuman species independently developing into humans with civilizations in multiple parts of the world during the last few thousand years. Civilizations based on farming and mining developed relatively recently all around the world, but at different rates at different places. Some survived and some were overrun by others. Frankly, it looks like humans have been overrunning each others' cultures for a long time before we were able to write down the history that records only the more recent of such events.

There does not seem to be any evidence of any humans arriving "from outside our earth". Or any need for any cultural attributes to have come from aliens.

Dear Unclear. Yours is an excellent summary of the real, known, situation. Thank you for that. The last remaining task is to determine and prove up the still current mystery DNA contained in the Denisovan line. There are apparently, more minor gaps in some of the smaller sub-branches still to be discovered. Fascinating subject!