The Origin of Life: A Scientific Inquiry

[baywax]

I don't understand what you mean by "constitution".

The constitution of non-living material is that it does not reproduce itself and go through a life cycle of transformations then degenerate and become "non-living material" survived only by its living offspring.

The constitution of living material is that it actually does go through these processes.

So, you might see these two "constitutions" as the laws of living and non-living things.

When non-living material is engineered to mimic life, it's artificial and based on the laws and constitution of living materials.

 

[DaveC426913]

I don't understand whatyou mean by "constitution".

Think of the root word 'constitutes', as in 'comprises' or 'makes up'.

"Water constitutes 98% of the body. / The constitution of the human body is 98% water."

 

[Desiree]

.

Either come up with a plausable alternative that can be falsified, or admit to yourself that you don't understand the point of scientific inquiry.

Andy:

I do respect scientific inquiry but do not accept BS as "knowledge". If and only if someday we found humans living on other planets and they evolved the way we have, other civilizations out there who know more than we do about our origins. What if their theory ruled out our BB and space-time theories completely? Just because we haven't been able to traverse the universe yet and visit such places, doesn't mean that we are the only living planet in the universe, right? So my suspicion and question is that while we think living organisms came out of the BB: atoms of nickel, iron, carbon, hydrogen ...so how plausible is that that they come together, start functioning and become someone like you and me, debating their distant past and origins.

Einstein and people like him did have some sort of belief in a supernatural thing called: God. but I don't. I look at it without supernatural causes unless I conclude that there is/are such things behind all this. So I guess there is nothing wrong with my scientific inquiry attitude because we have all been told a lot of BS in our lives every day. Perhaps those scientists are just hoping to be granted a Nobel prize or having their article published in a science journal. But I'm just looking for the truth, that's it. end of story.

 

[Kurdt]

You're not listening to what people are saying. This thread is pointless if you won't read previous posts. The big bang does not say anything about living organisms being created.
The only person who thinks living organisms came from the big bang is you. Primeval elements created at the time of the big bang are turned into heavier elements in the cores of stars through nuclear fusion. How they then form life forms is down to abiogenesis as others have stated. So you can't say big bang is BS because you misunderstand it.

I can't answer your questions about the origin of life as I don't have a biology background.

 

[Desiree]

Thanks Kurdt for your input. but let's just for a moment put my question/thread aside.

Suppose that we have a person standing right in front of us and we are trying to figure out whether he/she is a mathematician or an engineer or whatever the answer could be.

By our observations and observations only I mean, we could figure out the person's approximate age, exact gender, color, height, weight, volume, density, temperature, his/her radiations type, physical condition/strength, number of teeth, # of fingers, his/her mood: happy/sad...etc etc... but please tell me and I ask everyone to tell me if we could figure out whether this person is a mechanical engineer, or civil engineer, or a doctor, or a lawyer, a physicist? We could not for sure guess what profession he/she has only by using our observation's results and data. Even though we guessed based on our observations of all his/her physical descriptions that he/she is a mathematician, then we were told the answer and it just happened to be true does not mean that our "Knowledge" was correct. We in no way could figure out his/her career unless we resort to tools other than observations, if possible, never mind figuring out if he/she has an uncle called 'Thomas'.

So I guess my point now is a bit clearer on the BB theory. To my knowledge, BB has been proposed and advocated based on cosmological observations. No offense but I might eventually give into it but it's now too early.


P.S.
My academic background is neither biology nor physics. I am an engineer.

 

[Count Iblis]

There is perhaps a valid question regarding the relation between the Big Bang and the origin of life and ultimately our civilization: Where did all the information come from?

The laws of physics conserve information, both at the classical level and at the quantum level. Now, there is, of course, nothing paradoxical about this. You can imagine running some cellular automaton with reversible rules that conserves information that start from some simple to describe initial state and after many iterations gives rise to a community of intelligent beings discussing physics.

 

[Evo]

Thanks Kurdt for your input. but let's just for a moment put my question/thread aside.

Suppose that we have a person standing right in front of us and we are trying to figure out whether he/she is a mathematician or an engineer or whatever the answer could be.

By our observations and observations only I mean, we could figure out the person's approximate age, exact gender, color, height, weight, volume, density, temperature, his/her radiations type, physical condition/strength, number of teeth, # of fingers, his/her mood: happy/sad...etc etc... but please tell me and I ask everyone to tell me if we could figure out whether this person is a mechanical engineer, or civil engineer, or a doctor, or a lawyer, a physicist? We could not for sure guess what profession he/she has only by using our observation's results and data. Even though we guessed based on our observations of all his/her physical descriptions that he/she is a mathematician, then we were told the answer and it just happened to be true does not mean that our "Knowledge" was correct. We in no way could figure out his/her career unless we resort to tools other than observations, if possible, never mind figuring out if he/she has an uncle called 'Thomas'.

So I guess my point now is a bit clearer on the BB theory. To my knowledge, BB has been proposed and advocated based on cosmological observations. No offense but I might eventually give into it but it's now too early.


P.S.
My academic background is neither biology nor physics. I am an engineer.

What does any of that have to do with your topic "Where did life come from?"

The origin of life has nothing to do with the big bang theory. You've been told that, repeatedly.

Do you want this thread closed and you start a new thread strictly about the big bang? Because your questions have been answered and this thread is going nowhere.

 

[BoomBoom]

That's not true- some RNA is autocatalytic; it is itself an enzyme:

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030310&ct=1

Thus, one emerging thought is that RNA is the basis of life; DNA follwed after RNA.

Stuart Kaufman has written an excellent book specifically addressing your second paragraph.

The article you linked is specifically about RNA splicing...thereby replacing the need of a splicosome. This is different than your claim that it can self-replicate. But does refute my claim that is will just "remain a lump" effectively. :)
Although a "lump" of RNA that splices itself will still be a "lump" of RNA...just comprised of smaller pieces. hehe

But details aside, I do not doubt the value of RNA in the formation of life and I'm sure it played a key role. The different types of RNA (messenger, transfer, and ribosomal) probably made up much of the rudimentary mechanics of the first cells. But, IMO, I still believe some enzymes must have formed on their own to join the process...polymerases especially.

 

[vociferous]

I think that you should probably, at the very least read the wikipedia entries on the big bang: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_bang and abiogenesis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis.

Then, if you still have more questions, I am certain that we could find some good books on the subjects. Before you decide that two theories which are widely agreed upon as being the best explanations for the evidence (in the respective fields of cosmology and evolutionary biology) are untrue, you should attempt to have a basic understanding of them.

 

[Moonbear]

This thread has gone on long enough. Clearly the OP has no interest in actually learning science from scientists, but would prefer to reject it based on a "belief" system. The discussion has become redundant and futile.