From Soup to Cells: Measuring the Emergence of Life

Reading stuff like this makes me wish I had been better at chemistry and biology in school.

From Soup to Cells: Measuring the Emergence of Life

Quote :

According to her, the mystery of life's origins lies in the way these rudimentary chemical networks begin to process information. With that framework in mind, the transition to life becomes a well-defined event: a reversal in information flow.

Yeah, it's all a big fucking mystery.

She doesn't have a clue.

Nobody does.

And some people think it happens everywhere throughout the universe. Yeah right.

NoCoPilot wrote:

And some people think it happens everywhere throughout the universe.  Yeah right.

And "some people" will continue to hold that opinion until presented with a scientific reason which indicates otherwise. Are you aware of such a scientific reason?

Oh NoCo... go make a cup of tea...




Hey, now wait a minute here....

_Howard wrote:

And "some people" will continue to hold that opinion until presented with a scientific reason which indicates otherwise. Are you aware of such a scientific reason?

Lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack.

No wait.

What I meant to say was, there is no evidence yet for any life outside our biosphere -- now or ever -- so if you're asking for a 'scientific reason' why it couldn't exist, you're grabbing the stick by the wrong end.

There is no evidence disproving Russell's teapot either (see what I did there?)

NoCoPilot wrote:

...so if you're asking for a 'scientific reason' why it couldn't exist, you're grabbing the stick by the wrong end.

Let me rephrase this: Do you believe that it is possible that life exists somewhere else in the universe? Microbes, bacteria, algae, anything?

_Howard wrote:

Let me rephrase this: Do you believe that it is possible that life exists somewhere else in the universe? Microbes, bacteria, algae, anything?

Possible? Yes. Likely? No.

However, if it exists, it is probably life unlike anything we would recognize -- self replication by some molecule other than carbon and organic compounds. Certainly not algae, bacteria or microbes. Those are just one type of self-replicating organism (carbon-based oxygen-consuming), by no means the only possibility.

Fred Hoyle wrote a great novel about an intelligent methane gas cloud.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Possible? Yes.

Okay. We agree on that.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Likely?  No.

Why?

_Howard wrote:

NoCoPilot wrote:

Likely?  No.

Why?

Because as yet there's no explanation for how life started. We've been unable to duplicate it in the laboratory.

That leads me to believe it's extremely unlikely.

With all due respect, I don't understand your reasoning. Because we don't know how it happened, that makes it unlikely elsewhere? How does our lack of knowledge affect the rest of the universe?

"We've been unable to duplicate it in the laboratory." That's true. It took around 700 million years after the earth cooled off for single-cell critters like bacteria to appear, and another billion years for multi-cell creatures to arrive. Not surprising that scientists have not been able to replicate that in a lab. Maybe if they worked weekends.

_Howard wrote:

It took around 700 million years after the earth cooled off for single-cell critters like bacteria to appear, and another billion years for multi-cell creatures to arrive.

Actually, the leap from amino acids to RNA is enough.  Nobody's "animated" amino acids in the lab.

That should be fairly straightforward if it's gonna happen, and many scientists have spent a whole lot of time trying to make it happen.  And failed.

That one crucial step, from organic chemistry to "life," has never been replicated.

Incidentally, the first 2 billion years were not "critters like bacteria" (which are very sophisticated) but rather chemoautotrophs, which are not.  By synthesizing the planet's oxygen they made other forms of life possible.

Bacteria are Prokaryotes; that is, single celled. Some bacteria are chemoautotrophic.