Primitive life on Earth

[Dagsannr]

Chances are, the 'machine' [..] is just a fairly complex self-replicating organic molecules.

And just where did the machine come from?

Well, given you seem incapable of extrapolating, it's plausible that said 'machine' (note the quotes, as calling it a machine is semanically inaccurate), was formed from the operations of a previous, less-complex 'machine' and so on.

We see such machines all the time in nature, outside of the lab, and without the complex systems found in the cell. Nature is incredibily good at using energy to increase the complexity of a system.

[marcsurtees]

We see such machines all the time in nature, outside of the lab, and without the complex systems found in the cell.

Would you care to give an example?

Nature is incredibily good at using energy to increase the complexity of a system.

Is this "nature" the god of the evolutionary gaps?

[marcsurtees]

Chances are, the 'machine' [..] is just a fairly complex self-replicating organic molecules.

And just where did the machine come from?

No. You answer the question. Precisely where did Andy McIntosh's alleged machine originate from, what did it consist of, how did it operated, where was it, when did it come into existence...

Scientific answers only as this is a science-only section of our forum.

The scientific method has demonstrated that living things are made up of extremely complex biomolecular machines which cannot have arisen by any currently known natural processes. This leaves us with the options of
1) believing that it could have arisen by some unknown natural process (undirected / unintelligent design)
2) believing that an intelligent agent constructed the machines and assembled them by manipulation of matter in a way that we are not yet able to achieve.
However, we are starting to manipulate matter at the microscopic level and I believe that humans are potentially capable of manufacturing living systems from scratch, which will demonstrate that it can be done by intelligent agents.

[Roger Stanyard]

The scientific method has demonstrated that living things are made up of extremely complex biomolecular machines which cannot have arisen by any currently known natural processes. This leaves us with the options of
1) believing that it could have arisen by some unknown natural process (undirected / unintelligent design)
2) believing that an intelligent agent constructed the machines and assembled them by manipulation of matter in a way that we are not yet able to achieve.
However, we are starting to manipulate matter at the microscopic level and I believe that humans are potentially capable of manufacturing living systems from scratch, which will demonstrate that it can be done by intelligent agents.

The question was "Precisely where did Andy McIntosh's alleged machine originate from, what did it consist of, how did it operate, where was it, when did it come into existence..."

So answer the questions.

Or do you want me to do it for you?

Like, God created a machine but you have no idea what it was, how he did it, when he did it, where he did it, how it operated...

Moreover this machine created ubiquitous life of huge variety and perfect in every detail, all instantaneously but seems to have been incapable of producing just one man who had to be created by breathing into a lump of dirt because the machine didn't, apparently, work.

Some machine, some designer!

And you think scientists can replicate this in a lab!

Or did you just make it all up?

[Dagsannr]

We see such machines all the time in nature, outside of the lab, and without the complex systems found in the cell.

Would you care to give an example?

Not really, no. I'm tired of jumping through hoops when you steadfastly refuse to return the favour. Your beliefs are ridiculous and I don't have to justify the real science to you, especially when you'll use my answers as some form of points scoring mechanism with your fundamentalist cronies. I'm not a biologist and you've not defined what you consider a machine to be.

Is this "nature" the god of the evolutionary gaps?

Disingenous and misleading and you know it.

[cathy]

The scientific method has demonstrated that living things are made up of extremely complex biomolecular machines which cannot have arisen by any currently known natural processes.

Marc you keep making this statement in various forms (known chemistry proves life cannot exist, life cannot arise spontaneously etc). And you have been asked on numerous ocassions to provide evidence that they cannot have currently arisen by any known natural processes.

If you have an issue with currently known processse can you please provide hard scientific evidence or some kind of LOGICAL detailed argument showing how and why the various strands of research cannot give rise to life? Being aware that you will have to include evidence to the conditions, evidence to show no catalysts exist, evidence to show that research that hasn't even been done or thought of yet yet will be fundamentallly flawed in some way. Don't just keep parroting the same creationist mantras of equilibrium or known natural processes have failed. Give some detail!!!!!!!!

1) believing that it could have arisen by some unknown natural process (undirected / unintelligent design)

Natural processes are not unintelligent design but I take your point.

Extremely complex biomolecular machines exist. We know the earliest of these for which we have evidence was NOT Adam and Eve flollicking happily thru their dairy and dinosaur farm. So we know life got here, and we KNOW it wasn't as recorded in Genesis!

Moreover we have a very, very good idea indeed for the story from there. So life at some point, by currently known or unknown processes, arrived here. The most probable and likely explanation is natural processes given what occurs either side of it.

Moreover far from proving natural processs impossible, even flawed Miller Urey show that complex molecules can arise in certain conditions, and the reams of later research show they can in a range of diverse conditions. Other research shows simple evolution at a very, very basic level, and other research is looking for features of life in inorganic chemistry. And it doesn't even have to be on Earth. So difficult and intriguing rather than impossible is the word I'd use.

Feel free to shove God into that gap for the time being but it does not prove any of your beliefs and does not get rid of the simple fact that once life appeared it EVOLVED. But think about what the consequences of just shoving God into this gap. Think about what it says about his inability to understand chemistry enough to allow natural processes to give rise to life when everything else proceeds happily via natural processes in that way.

2) believing that an intelligent agent constructed the machines and assembled them by manipulation of matter in a way that we are not yet able to achieve.
However, we are starting to manipulate matter at the microscopic level and I believe that humans are potentially capable of manufacturing living systems from scratch, which will demonstrate that it can be done by intelligent agents.

So God came down (or the intelligent agent) and constructed what exactly?

If your machine (which you haven't defined at all) is RNA or DNA and proteins are you actually saying Genesis should say God came down and made RNA and proteins chucked them in a pond and left them? Is that what you are saying? Please be precise. Can't discuss this point until you make it clear what you are on about.

Please clarify - are you saying God came down and magickically glued together nucleotides than shoved them in a pond with some amino acides and left? Or are you saying God came down and magicked up some simple prokaryotic cells and left them in a pond? Cos that would be manufacturing a living system from scratch.

Given irreducible complexity of existing biology/biochemistry does not exist (as all evidence shows it is NOT irreducibly complex) and given what we know about before and after the origin of life - are you really shoving God into a gap to desperately glue together nucleotides? What does that say about God?

And more importantly why is that not recorded in the book of Genesis.

Please clarify exactly what you mean. I'm not as bright as the others I can't interpret you rhetorical wafflings as competently.

[cathy]

This is nice little article -
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17769529
Evolution seen in 'Synthetic DNA'

Researchers have succeeded in mimicking the chemistry of life in synthetic versions of DNA and RNA molecules.

The work shows that DNA and its chemical cousin RNA are not unique in their ability to encode information and to pass it on through heredity.

The work, reported in Science, is promising for future "synthetic biology" and biotechnology efforts.

It also hints at the idea that if life exists elsewhere, it could be bound by evolution but not by similar chemistry.

Instead of looking at the bases they've changed the sugar sides of DNA/RNA. And found.

The process of evolution was encouraged in the lab; one of their DNA analogues was designed to cling to a particular protein or RNA target, those that failed to do so were washed away.

As successive copies of those that stuck were made, variations in the genetic code - and the resulting structure the molecules took on - led to ever more tightly attached XNAs."We've been able to show that both heredity - information storage and propagation - and evolution, which are really two hallmarks of life, can be reproduced and implemented in alternative polymers other than DNA and RNA," Dr Holliger explained.

"There is nothing 'Goldilocks' about DNA and RNA - there is no overwhelming functional imperative for genetic systems or biology to be based on these two nucleic acids."

No doubt creationists will cling to the word designed and the fact the polymerases are still required - but the point is that that was done for specific reasons, I guess the researchers didn't have millions of years to play with. But the result does suggest DNA and RNA not the be all and end all and early evolution happens.

[Dagsannr]

re: XNA

I can't decide if that's utterly scary or totally cool.
Synthetic, self-replicating DNA equivalents with more stability that the original DNA - the basis for a new era of synthetic organisms, tailored to make eat our trash, hydrogen for fuel and clean up the atmosphere... or the start of a slow descent into a 'grey goo' Earth where everything has been infected and killed by bacteria totally resistant to our immune systems and every drug ever made or still to be made.

You decide.....

[GrumpyBob]

re: XNA

I can't decide if that's utterly scary or totally cool.
Synthetic, self-replicating DNA equivalents with more stability that the original DNA - the basis for a new era of synthetic organisms, tailored to make eat our trash, hydrogen for fuel and clean up the atmosphere... or the start of a slow descent into a 'grey goo' Earth where everything has been infected and killed by bacteria totally resistant to our immune systems and every drug ever made or still to be made.

You decide.....

I wonder why the intelligent designer went with ribose and deoxyribose sugars...

Robert

[Michael]

re: XNA

I can't decide if that's utterly scary or totally cool.
Synthetic, self-replicating DNA equivalents with more stability that the original DNA - the basis for a new era of synthetic organisms, tailored to make eat our trash, hydrogen for fuel and clean up the atmosphere... or the start of a slow descent into a 'grey goo' Earth where everything has been infected and killed by bacteria totally resistant to our immune systems and every drug ever made or still to be made.

You decide.....

I wonder why the intelligent designer went with ribose and deoxyribose sugars...

Robert

Sweet tooth?

[Dr_GS_Hurd]

We see such machines all the time in nature, outside of the lab, and without the complex systems found in the cell.

Would you care to give an example?

Nature is incredibily good at using energy to increase the complexity of a system.

Is this "nature" the god of the evolutionary gaps?

What a jack-ass? Do you bother to read any of the literature you insist doesn't exist? Here is one place you might start;

Braakman R, Smith E (2012) "The Emergence and Early Evolution of Biological Carbon-Fixation." PLoS Comput Biol 8(4): e1002455. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002455

[marcsurtees]

We see such machines all the time in nature, outside of the lab, and without the complex systems found in the cell.

Would you care to give an example?

Nature is incredibily good at using energy to increase the complexity of a system.

Is this "nature" the god of the evolutionary gaps?

What a jack-ass? Do you bother to read any of the literature you insist doesn't exist? Here is one place you might start;

Braakman R, Smith E (2012) "The Emergence and Early Evolution of Biological Carbon-Fixation." PLoS Comput Biol 8(4): e1002455. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002455

None of the literature that I have read provides a plausible mechanism by which life could arise spontaneously on an early earth.
Thanks for the link to this new paper, I have downloaded it and when I get around to reading it I will post a response.

[cathy]

None of the literature that I have read provides a plausible mechanism by which life could arise spontaneously on an early earth.

Including Genesis.

[Dagsannr]

None of the literature that I have read provides a plausible mechanism by which life could arise spontaneously on an early earth.
Thanks for the link to this new paper, I have downloaded it and when I get around to reading it I will post a response.

So?
What do you think that means?
That a literal reading of Genesis is true? Or just that we don't know how life arose on Earth?

[marcsurtees]

None of the literature that I have read provides a plausible mechanism by which life could arise spontaneously on an early earth.

So?
What do you think that means?
That a literal reading of Genesis is true? Or just that we don't know how life arose on Earth?

I think it means that we do not know how life arose, but we know that the process had to be directed, because known chemistry falsifies the spontaneous (by lots of very small steps taking place over millions of years) generation of life. But of course someone may one day show that life can arise spontaneous without the need for an external agent to direct the process.
And some believe that the book of Genesis tells who that agent was, without telling us (except in very general and non-scientific terms) how He did it.