Abiogenesis not probable but inevitable, says physicist

dusty1
Interesting.

However your statement directly contradicts the OP and it's source material.

Again, we are dealing with a hypothesis as laid out in the Original Post. It may be valid or it may not and Asyntax brought up a rather interesting point in this regard. Just because the author cited in the Original Post feels this may be the case does not automatically tie it to biological evolution. The two are separate at this point in the investigation and may remain so pending further experimentation, observations and discoveries. Evolution is a fully functioning theory that operates outside of the prime mover for the creation of life.

Astyanax
reply to post by Tearman

 

If we take our abiogenesis experiments and scale them up to the size of a planet, and let the experiment run for a few hundred million years and if after waiting all that time we still have no results in the soup, I'll concede the non reality of abiogenesis.

Nicely put, and it points up an interesting aspect of the subject that nobody has really bothered to address yet. England's hypothesis is not, I think, experimentally falsifiable, because the experiment cannot be conducted on anything less than a planetary scale and over a period that can only be descrbed as epochal. And even then we could never be certain.

As a theoretical exercise, however, it is perfectly valid, and may be judged as such.

If something is not (experimentally) falsifiable, then it's not science. Just throwing that out there.

AugustusMasonicus
Evolution is a fully functioning theory that operates outside of the prime mover for the creation of life.

Not exactly. Evolution describes how living things change according to the environments they're in, but has nothing to do with how things get to be alive in the first place.

There's no theory for how chemically infused mud bubbles spontaneously increase their molecular complexity to the point where they evolve into something that lives and has motivations to eat and reproduce.

Blue Shift
Not exactly. Evolution describes how living things change according to the environments they're in, but has nothing to do with how things get to be alive in the first place.

Which is exactly what I said in my post so I do not see where the confusion lays.

vasaga
If something is not (experimentally) falsifiable, then it's not science. Just throwing that out there.

It is not experimentally falsifiable at this time. Who is to say what capabilities humanity will have in the future in regards interstellar travel and terraforming.

reply to post by AugustusMasonicus


Is it simply a question of 'world enough and time'? I don't think so. The claim that thermodynamic processes must eventually give rise to life is too nebulous to test empirically — however large your experimental setting/apparatus is and however long you take over it. If you succeed, you still haven't proved that the emergence of life is inevitable, and if you fail, well, maybe you just didn't give it enough time.

If we put some numbers on the statement — 'given a population of x atoms or molecules and an energy budget of y Joules, life will emerge in 10^n seconds', that sort of thing — it would be a different matter.

In a situation like that you might even be able to compute — who knows — probabilities.

Astyanax
Is it simply a question of 'world enough and time'? I don't think so. The claim that thermodynamic processes must eventually give rise to life is too nebulous to test empirically — however large your experimental setting/apparatus is and however long you take over it. If you succeed, you still haven't proved that the emergence of life is inevitable, and if you fail, well, maybe you just didn't give it enough time.

If we put some numbers on the statement — 'given a population of x atoms or molecules and an energy budget of y Joules, life will emerge in 10^n seconds', that sort of thing — it would be a different matter.

Agreed, the point I was trying to make is that we would not at this point be able to empirically test, on a planet-wide scale, any refined metrics if they were to be proposed. Possibly in the future, but not at this point, that is why I think the hypothesis in the Original Post may remain so for the foreseeable future and possibly indefinitely.

reply to post by Astyanax

If we put some numbers on the statement — 'given a population of x atoms or molecules and an energy budget of y Joules, life will emerge in 10^n seconds', that sort of thing — it would be a different matter.

Then you would have the formula of life.

One could bake it from scratch.

reply to post by dusty1


All we would have is a formula to calculate the likelihood of emergence within a timeframe. We wouldn't be any nearer understanding how to create life ourselves.

When your wife falls pregnant, you know it is likely that a child will be born within nine months, but that doesn't give you a formula for making babies from their chemical components. You still have to make them the old-fashioned way.

reply to post by Astyanax


So when it's a likelihood that supports your views it's great and it's science. If it's a likelihood that does not support your views, it's nonsense and creationism. Good to know.

vasaga
reply to post by Astyanax

 

So when it's a likelihood that supports your views it's great and it's science. If it's a likelihood that does not support your views, it's nonsense and creationism. Good to know.

Creationism/intelligent design is Not Even Wrong:

The phrase not even wrong describes any argument that purports to be scientific but fails at some fundamental level, usually in that it contains a terminal logical fallacy or it cannot be falsified by experiment (i.e. tested with the possibility of being rejected), or cannot be used to make predictions about the natural world.

The phrase is generally attributed to theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who was known for his colorful objections to incorrect or sloppy thinking.[1] Rudolf Peierls documents an instance in which "a friend showed Pauli the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli's views. Pauli remarked sadly, 'It is not even wrong'." [2] This is also often quoted as "It is not only not right, it is not even wrong," or "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!" in Pauli's native German. Peierls remarks that quite a few apocryphal stories of this kind have been circulated and mentions that he listed only the ones personally vouched by him. He also quotes another example when Pauli replied to Lev Landau, "What you said was so confused that one could not tell whether it was nonsense or not."[2]

Physicist Arthur Schuster in 1911 said "We all prefer being right to being wrong, but it is better to be wrong than to be neither right nor wrong".[3]

The phrase is often used to describe pseudoscience or bad science, and is considered derogatory.[4]

reply to post by GetHyped

Creationism/intelligent design is Not Even Wrong:

"Well, I'd say that also our friend GetHyped has got a religion, and the first commandment of this religion is 'God does not exist and GetHyped is his prophet'"

dusty1
reply to post by GetHyped

 

Creationism/intelligent design is Not Even Wrong:

"Well, I'd say that also our friend GetHyped has got a religion, and the first commandment of this religion is 'God does not exist and GetHyped is his prophet'"

The first commandment is in fact "Thou shall not hold firm beliefs about the natural world that are not backed up by empirical evidence, no matter how philosophically comforting those beliefs may be to you". I know this is a tough concept for creationists to grasp but we really don't care about gods or religion, we care about evidence. I couldn't give 2 shakes of a monkey's tale whether or not there is a god, all I know is that it's a lame explanation for natural phenomenon held by people who are more interested in cowering in the darkness of ignorance and superstition than being intellectually honest in their pursuit of knowledge.

"God did it" is not an answer, it's an excuse to stop asking questions.

reply to post by GetHyped


I guess my quote went over your head...

"God did it" is not an answer, it's an excuse to stop asking questions.

So Abiogenesis did it?

The IPhone. Steve Jobs did it, or at least ran the company that did it.

Did all app technology grind to a screeching halt because the IPhone was invented by intelligent designers?

vasaga
reply to post by Astyanax

 

So when it's a likelihood that supports your views it's great and it's science. If it's a likelihood that does not support your views, it's nonsense and creationism. Good to know.

What a silly comment, good to know.
Science is not based on ones views, while creationism is. They are like two sides of the same coin. One prefers to use its head, while the other relies on tales...

Astyanax
reply to post by dusty1

 

All we would have is a formula to calculate the likelihood of emergence within a timeframe. We wouldn't be any nearer understanding how to create life ourselves.

I thought the point was to create laboratory experiments to re-create abiogenesis?

If an underlying cosmic principle is in play, with regards to the emergence of life, it should be repeatable under lab conditions.

An Unintelligent, Undesigned universe, should be no match for intelligent minds.

When your wife falls pregnant, you know it is likely that a child will be born within nine months, but that doesn't give you a formula for making babies from their chemical components. You still have to make them the old-fashioned way.

With a big emphasis on the words "You and Make"

Life has to come from pre existing life.

What would the probability of my wife getting pregnant be, if my wife was taken out of the equation?

Lets say she never existed at all.

In this thought exercise you are presupposing that I have a wife.

Some may say that there is zero evidence that I do.........


Some may even believe that asexual reproduction would be alot more efficient, and sexual reproduction should be unnecessary to create life.

flyingfish

vasaga
reply to post by Astyanax

 

So when it's a likelihood that supports your views it's great and it's science. If it's a likelihood that does not support your views, it's nonsense and creationism. Good to know.

What a silly comment, good to know.
Science is not based on ones views, while creationism is. They are like two sides of the same coin. One prefers to use its head, while the other relies on tales...

While I was talking about likelihood, everyone was telling me it has no value in science and I was being shunned aside. When he talks about likelihood, he gets stars. Obvious double standard is obvious.

reply to post by dusty1


The difference is we actually have some evidence for abiogenesis and we have a means of not only further testing it but also how we can also falsify it. "God did it" has neither. Your argument is nothing more than the lame old God of the Gaps fallacy. It's not even an explanation, it's an infantile fairy tale that gives comfort to the naive and ignorant.

reply to post by Astyanax


"Well, then. How will creationists respond if abiogenesis is shown to be an inevitable result of the nature of matter itself? "


I'm not a creationist but one of the first phrases in genesis reads something like "And let there be light"

Everything has a beginning and I believe something (GOD?) did it intentionally.

NAVO66
reply to post by Astyanax

 

"Well, then. How will creationists respond if abiogenesis is shown to be an inevitable result of the nature of matter itself? "


I'm not a creationist but one of the first phrases in genesis reads something like "And let there be light"

Everything has a beginning and I believe something (GOD?) did it intentionally.

If everything had a beginning then 'GOD' also had a beginning no?

Who did that intentionally?