Chemists claim to have solved riddle of how life began on Earth

This is interesting news! Of course no one will be satisfied until they produce those reactions and start abiogenesis themselves (myself included) but we're inching closer to one possibility out of many...

a reply to: Elton

Cool...

Consider me drooling...a little.

There is still more work that needs to be done but at every turn it looks as though the hypothesis will be proven much sooner than later.


It makes me look forward to future endeavours to Jupiter's moons even more. There is a very real possibility that there be life out there. (done with best pirate voice possible)

Who knows we may one day discover there is intelligent life in this universe. (no, I didn't forget about us with that statement)

Yup, this planet could make the simplest molecules of life. But how did it make the scientists who discovered how to make this reaction? The difference between simple life and very highly sophisticated beings is incomprehensible. Let's discuss what keeps every cell in our bodies working together and our immune system regulating cravings and defending us against other life that wants to eat us.

Now, simple life can be created in a lab, but complex life is way different. That life they created is a blank slate, it cannot think. Even water has more brains in it than that life they created.

And still no cure for the common cold but yet they figured all of this out. It boggles the mind.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
we discovered fusion and created the atomic bomb. what will we create with this discovery?

That is less creating and more learning how things work.

a reply to: Elton

Very exciting! With every scientific step, the phrase "we are stardust" has more and more meaning.

originally posted by: Elton
I'm not a fan of the modern 'science versus religion' arguments.

I'm not either. That's like arguing 'prunes versus electricity'. They really don't have much to do with each other.

originally posted by: Char-Lee

originally posted by: TzarChasm
we discovered fusion and created the atomic bomb. what will we create with this discovery?

That is less creating and more learning how things work.

I would hope a more commonsense world than we have now!

Even a little bit of knowledge will come with some arrogance. I'm assured we'll find a way to fumble up something. However, the history of science has shown it to largely benefit us, in terms of making us more capable. No I'm not saying living a more agrarian or natural lifestyle is the opposite of progress. I do not worship science. I'm not a singularitan or soulless person. I just think understanding how things work and being able to do things, like orbit the earth or view (or travel to) distant stars, is at least as worthwhile.

Origins of life is very interesting to me because of the implications for life elsewhere. I already believe we're creations of nature. I am presently agnostic atheist. I grew up as a christian, believing God created me. Yet if we're alone in the cosmos, it makes me think So this is all there is? LIFE makes the universe fun. That's why I'm interested. Perhaps I am wrong and us being alone is a blessing. It would after all mean there's nobody out there to oppose us. We'd genuinely be the masters of the universe, free to do as we desire. And even more inspiring than that: Give us a million years or a hundred million or a billion, and there'll be many species of human, biosynthetic, or other intelligent life sprinkled across the galaxy and probably enroute to others. We're not just warmongers or mad scientists, we're propagators of life.

Another part of me is intrigued by the unknown. Science is like the disciplined exploration of the unknown. Many sciences are interesting this way, but only on an elementary level. I'm not a genius and have to struggle to understand common things. Reading about certain science discoveries is always exciting to me but I mostly rely on smarter people than myself to relay its meaning.

This is very interesting, although I still won't be entirely convinced until they are able to fully reproduce it and create life from non-living compounds.

I am religious and don't have a problem with science.

If I read the OP correctly, life sprung from the elements on ancient Earth.

I always did believe that.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
we discovered fusion and created the atomic bomb. what will we create with this discovery?

An atomic blob, maybe?

It should be pointed out, given the Creator vs. no Creator debate, that a scientific explanation for the beginning of biological lifeforms does not really make a Creator impractical or impossible. Any logical person would have to concede that if there were a Creator, this designer could have brought about the creation of life in whatever manner they wished. It actually makes some sense that if there were an intelligent designer they would have worked within whatever constraints they established in the first place. Meaning that if the universe was the first thing that was created, and this universe was created with specific laws in place, then the subsequent creation or evolution of anything within that universe would be dependent upon those specific laws. This is why even evolution does not make the idea of a Creator impossible. The truth of the matter is that it is impossible to prove a Creator, just as it is impossible to prove there is no Creator, for the reason I've given above.

This says nothing about whether a Creator could limit their own abilities, because they wouldn't have needed to. If a Creator exists, and is all-knowing and all-powerful, then it must be conceded that the only necessary intervention for the creation of "anything" was a single initial act. From that initial act, let's say the creation of the universe, everything else would fall into place in some preconceived way. Just because we have detected a certain randomness or probability-driven behavior in particles does not mean that a Creator is limited to the degree that we are, and that they could still "see" exactly what would occur from the creation of the universe until the end of it. That is the thing about being all-powerful...You're all-powerful.

Now perhaps such a scenario would pose a problem for specific religions, but those who argue against Creation are not arguing against a specific religion, but are arguing against the notion of a Creator itself. Such a view is illogical in my opinion. Of course we cannot prove the existence of a Creator, but anyone who claims to be an objective person must concede that it is at the very least possible. So I can understand someone saying they do not believe in a Creator, but to say that it is impossible for a Creator to exist is not only arrogant, but just plain illogical, given that as a species we are by no means "advanced." We have barely scratched the surface, yet some wish to maintain that we know enough about things that we cannot even scientifically address at present to make far-reaching claims about the existence or non-existence of that very thing we cannot scientifically address. Or to put it another way, we cannot scientifically test the idea of God, therefore how can it be maintained that God has been disproven by science? The idea of God is not falsifiable anyway, meaning you can never disprove a Creator.

originally posted by: Elton
Of course we can't really know without a time machine,

Very precise and on point. We may never 'know' how it happened, but we can certainly learn more about how it 'could' have happened.

So...

It REALLY was swamp gas and light reflected off Venus.

I'll be danged

a reply to: chr0naut

But even if we did know the mechanism, it does not remove God from creation

It doesn't remove the possibility of there being a supernatural cause. Of course not. How does one disprove things that supposedly exist outside of nature?

When religions claim their god made life a certain way, and in fact it's proven it was made a different way entirely, can we dismiss those gods?

originally posted by: Lucid Lunacy
a reply to: chr0naut

But even if we did know the mechanism, it does not remove God from creation

It doesn't remove the possibility of there being a supernatural cause. Of course not. How does one disprove things that supposedly exist outside of nature?

When religions claim their god made life a certain way, and in fact it's proven it was made a different way entirely, can we dismiss those gods?

Sure, but science has a habit of redacting its 'proofs'.

Dark matter and dark energy show that the standard model only covers about 5% of the 'stuff' of the universe. Who knows, perhaps whole cosmologies are totally wrong.

Yeah I'm sure this is going to turn out well

To me, it has always been more then the required materials. Something has to be the catalyst that organizes the order out of static chaos.

Just like a box full of all the required letters of the alphabet. Put them in the right order, and you have every book ever written. There has to be a fundamental intelligence that knows how to kick-start an assemblage of the "right ingredients".
What ever that is, it is the most illusive aspect of all of this.

a reply to: chr0naut

But it is a big step to assemble those ingredients into a coded strand of RNA or DNA, complete with transcription, replication and the energy utilizing (metabolic) processes required for life.

How those processes could arise has not yet even been theorized, let alone generated, so its a 'no' on the abiogenesis front at present.

The OP discusses an article describing how the necessary organic molecules could have formed naturally on Earth. It was already known that they did in fact exist both on Earth and in Space. Now we know how 'easy' it was for them to form in the first place.

You are correct that the processes that can convert those organic molecules into 'life' (that is, abiogenesis) have not yet been "theorized". There are however several "hypotheses" under study as candidate pieces towards such a theory.

The following video discusses one such hypothesis. It is an excellent video which I have posted several times. It would seem that this would be a good time to show it again.

Reread the first paragraph of the OP before watching the video ( and by all means turn up your speakers ).

Here is another good discussion about abiogenesis and the directions that current thought is taking. Again, no, there is no theory yet. Hypotheses are being developed and worked on.



And the follow on to the one above: