Simple answer, please! Scientifically explain the origin of life coming from nothing!

by Silent_Scream 170 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  NewChapter

  NewChapter, I viewed it from a survivalist point-of-view. Rather not waste time in trying to create a new form of life in order to survive. You will use what you know and what you have, hypothetically, of course.

  If the goal is survival, perhaps. But if the stated goal is knowledge, then they will take the golden opportunity to find that knowledge. You hypothetically offered them the opportunity, then hypothetically took the opportunity away by saying they simply won't be interested in finding the answers and will go with known knowledge. In other words, you made a conclusion before you even gave them a hypothetical chance.

  NC
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  dgp

  Billy: I know that there are two accounts of Creation. That is one of the many good things I have received from apostates.
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  GeneM

  This entire post is why I am finishing up a biology degree and am going to teach high school science. There are a LOT of people who need a better understanding of science.

  "Scientific method asserts" -Scientific Method does not assert anything, it is a METHOD.

  "Nothing living can come from something non-living" -this is a biggie, you don’t understand what life is, that’s ok because science education is lacking. Nonliving matter is chemistry, living matter is chemistry. If scientists assert anything it is the logical assertion that the self-replicating organic chemistry which we call life came from less complex non-self-replicating chemistry at some point in the distant past. When you restate the assertion made by 'scientific method'(?) it would be "no complex self-replicating organic chemistry can come from less complex non-self-replicating chemistry. That’s a silly thing to say. I hope you're starting to see how silly the straw man you built looks.

  "Science is observable" -ok

  "Science is reproducible" -this is classically true, but then you get into things like is economics or political science a science. We can't very well rerun and election or a market crash. Some things by their nature happen only once. But I digress.

  "A living thing coming from non-living matter has NEVER been observed nor reproduced." -strictly speaking every time you eat cornflakes, your turning nonliving matter into living matter but i get your meaning. If a scientist were to observe 'life coming from nonlife'(again just it's chemistry) it would take the same millions of years it did the first time. If they were to figure out the mechanism and reproduce life in a beaker, which they may at some point, creationists would howl saying "but you created it!!!".

  "Therefore, it takes FAITH in an unknown process to believe that that's exactly what happened in the beginning, with NO EVIDENCE!" -I have to say I'm confused by this. I would say the answer is staring you in the face, but in this case literally go look in the mirror, the answer IS STARING YOU IN THE FACE. You are the evidence that complex self-replicating chemistry came from less complex non-self-replicating chemistry. The earth of filled to the brim with the evidence that this happened. If god did it from clay or it happened on its own has yet to be proven either way, but it happened and we're all proof, no faith needed.

  "So please tell me in scientific evidence , how life originated. A simple clear concise answer." -I can't wait to hear the answer to. Nobel prize winning stuff you can be sure. I hope it one of my future students!

  "1) And yes, I have studied abiogenesis" -don’t be offended but I'm skeptical of this.

  "2) Please do not attack theistic beliefs. Lets stick to the question." -ok
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  palmtree67

  "Nothing living can come from something non-living"

  VS.

  "no complex self-replicating organic chemistry can come from less complex non-self-replicating chemistry."

  Thank you for that explanation, GeneM.

  Nicely explained in layman's terms. You will make a great Science teacher!
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  GeneM

  Why thank you. I've wanted to do it since I was a little kid but the WBTS and family convinced me not to go to college. I'm out and in school and love it. The would is sooo much more interesting when you know the details of how things work.
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  kepler

  GeneM,

  Good summary post. A lot of these discussions seem to get bogged down in first principle discussions ( like Cogito, ergo sum. Yeah, but how do you know?) and the problem never gets any better defined. I think you pushed it beyond that point.

  Several pages back and a good night's sleep, I had left something hanging as well. SS had said that we could not prove that the sun was 93 million miles away without a yardstick, and I left the solution up in the air. I fiddled with it for a while and then looked it up. Before radar and the space age, estimates of the sun's distance or the Astronomical Unit started to roll in with measurements of parallax.

  The basic idea is to observe the sun or a solar related event like the transit of Venus at opposite sides of the earth and see if the observers had a difference in measurement angle. They do, but it is very small. About 8.8 arc seconds, with an arc second equal to 1/3600th of a degree. The sun itself, like the moon, is about a half a degree wide in the celestial sphere. So aiming at a smaller object like Venus or Mercury makes the observations more precise. Venus is about a hundredth the width of the sun, but when viewed a third of the way there, it is about three times wider. Its basically the same process as measuring the distance to (nearby) stars, except with stars, the opposite ends of the Earth's orbit around the sun is used as the triangulation base.

  I don't think anyone bounces radar beams off the sun, but we have received radar returns from Venus, Mercury and Mars for decades. Then we have sent spacecraft all over the solar system via navigation... Er, I won't mention what his name's laws...

  So the point is, there are geometric methods and proofs for establishing the distance to the sun. And there are methods and proofs for examining other things.

  SS, I believe, you started this thread asking about the origin of life. My interpretation of that, perhaps wrong, was that you were asking how it can arrive on the scene when before there was none. If you meant literally nothing, as in no elements or compounds, well, I don't know what can be done on that one. But for the former there is a body of evidence for steps, circumstances and mechanisms. Incomplete but a career path for many now alive and maybe still to come.
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  GeneM

  Yeah I've taken a couple courses in astronomy as well because it was always a hobby of mine. The aproximate distance to the sun and the mass of the earth are actually really basic calculations that first year physics or geometry teachers sometimes do as practice problems.

  lol Love me some kepler BTW
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  Terry

  I remember asking my grandmother some BIG question one afternoon.

  She looked at me for a moment and replied, "Pretend I just gave you the answer to your question. Now, how has your life improved?"

  Sometimes we just have too much time on our hands.
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  soft+gentle

  silent-scream - bottom line your question cannot be answered. no one knows how something living comes from non-living matter. And yes it does take faith - One can look at oneself in the mirror and know that one exists but it takes faith to believe that life came from non living matter whether it be through God or via chemical reaction.

  edit: but i do have lots of respect and appreciation for science and technology I hasten to add
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  still thinking

  GeneM & Kepler...just want to say I thouroughly enjoyed reading your last posts...