Evolution and abiogenesis

[jimbob]

Correct me if I'm wrong... but evolution merely establishes that this, led to this, which led to this, which led to this. It does not and cannot ultimately explain (just for example) what caused the beak of one bird to enlarge while that of another did not. Survival imperatives may explain why the fit survive, but it does not explain how the fit become fit in the first place. Thus...legitimately introducing some manner of 'inexplicable' factor into abiogenesis may quite credibly implicate evolution.

Yes you are wrong. It explains the mechanism as well.

There are a myriad of possibly beneficial traits that would improve the reproductive chances of any particular organism - some are more likely to occur than others, either because the benefit of a partial trait is so strong (strong selective pressure) or because it doesn't require much of a change to occur. Other traits are more unlikely but will sometimes arise.

I tend to view evolution via natural selection as akin to playing a game with lots of differently-biased dice. The exact route is not predetermined, but various outcomes are more or less likely. Flight has evolved many times, so that is quite likely, similarly with sight.

 

[jimbob]

BTW: John Maynard Smith's The Theory of Evolution is a really good book for a layperson and which covers a lot of the approaches to selective pressure and other aspects of evolution/

 

[jimbob]

I think that as our knowledge improves, that option is becoming less and less plausible.

Yes, I would agree.

Fair enough - I can't actually think of a plausible mechanism for abiogenesis that doesn't involve evolution of proto-life before true life arises.

I agree that it is possible to think of implausible mechanisms though.

 

[Fudbucker]

What some of you are saying is that this would be convincing to a person:
"Look, we have no idea how life started. We've been at it for forever and we keep coming up short. Every attempt to create life in the lab has failed. Maybe aliens really did seed the planet. BUT we are absolutely sure about what happened once life got started, and we know no aliens were involved."

Isn't there some tension going on between those two claims?

 

[truethat]

Abiogenesis has one answer. There is only one real answer that will ever be. "We don't know." Period the end.

I remember being a kid and one of the reasons I was so sold on the idea of Heaven was I thought when you died and went to heaven, they would answer all of your questions about life.

But that's never going to happen. Even if we THINK we've figured out, bar the ability of a time machine, it ain't ever going to happen. So we should not make up stories to make ourselves feel better.

To me, a sign of intelligence is the ability to say "I don't know" and be comfortable with not knowing. People who are emotional don't seem to be able to handle it. So they comfort themselves with theories and lies.

God did it
Aliens seeded the planet
If we do enough research we can figure it out.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Your analogy doesn't fit reality unless you are arguing for Intelligent Design or creation of the first life form via magical conception and thereby trying to separate abiogenesis out, as if those two hypotheses are still on the table, it would be just as much denial as arguing we didn't have enough supporting evidence for evolution theory.

Again: claiming that a pregnancy was "miraculous", or the result of advanced lab technology, or the result of unskilled labor does not change the fact of the pregnancy, or the foetus develops. Not knowing which of the above caused the pregnancy does not make the pregnancy go away...

Not knowing which of the possible avenues of biopoesis actually led to life on this planet does not change the observable facts of evolution by natural selection; nor does it make evolution "didn't happen".

 

[Belz...]

Abiogenesis has one answer. There is only one real answer that will ever be. "We don't know." Period the end.

Right! Just like "what is the sun?" will never have an answer. Just like "how do birds fly?" will never have an answer.

You'd make an awesome scientist.

 

[Fudbucker]

Again: claiming that a pregnancy was "miraculous", or the result of advanced lab technology, or the result of unskilled labor does not change the fact of the pregnancy, or the foetus develops. Not knowing which of the above caused the pregnancy does not make the pregnancy go away...

Not knowing which of the possible avenues of biopoesis actually led to life on this planet does not change the observable facts of evolution by natural selection; nor does it make evolution "didn't happen".

AFAIK, intelligent design theories don't posit that natural selection doesn't occur or that evolution "didn't happen". They say that at certain points, where natural selection would have produced organism X, outside intervention happened to produce organism Y. In other words, how do you know it was a cosmic ray that produced a mutation and not an alien mutation gun?

 

[jimbob]

AFAIK, intelligent design theories don't posit that natural selection doesn't occur or that evolution "didn't happen". They say that at certain points, where natural selection would have produced organism X, outside intervention happened to produce organism Y.

Except that every posited example of "irreducible" complexity so far has been shown to be eminently reducible. So there is no reason to invoke anything exotic in the first place.

 

[jimbob]

Right! Just like "what is the sun?" will never have an answer. Just like "how do birds fly?" will never have an answer.

You'd make an awesome scientist.

I bet that a fair number of the British posters at least would be able to guess what that 30-second video is before clicking on it

 

[truethat]

Right! Just like "what is the sun?" will never have an answer. Just like "how do birds fly?" will never have an answer.

You'd make an awesome scientist.

We do have the answers to those, so your comment is stupid and irrelevant.

We cannot see the moment of abiogensis. We can theorize about it but it is impossible to know or to prove. So making up **** and calling it science is just as stupid as making up **** and calling it God or aliens or whatever.

We don't know and we will never know. Instead, we should spend our energies on things we can examine and study as most scientists actually do.

 

[Belz...]

We do have the answers to those, so your comment is stupid and irrelevant.

And woosh!

We didn't at some point. Just like right now we don't have the answer to this. I'm actually surprised you've managed to not get that.

We cannot see the moment of abiogensis.

We also cannot see the moment of a lot of past events that we've determined. Your argument is one of pure ignorance.

 

[Fudbucker]

Except that every posited example of "irreducible" complexity so far has been shown to be eminently reducible. So there is no reason to invoke anything exotic in the first place.

Unless you've got your foot in the door via exotic abiogenesis. If speculation about aliens seeding life is taken seriously, then speculation that aliens seeded life AND guided it at certain points to produce intelligent beings like us would seem to be legit speculation as well, and that's where the damage to evolution theory comes in.

 

[Belz...]

Unless you've got your foot in the door via exotic abiogenesis. If speculation about aliens seeding life is taken seriously, then speculation that aliens seeded life AND guided it at certain points to produce intelligent beings like us would seem to be legit speculation as well, and that's where the damage to evolution theory comes in.

Not at all, since the two theories are entirely separate. The aliens, after all, came from somewhere, too.

 

[truethat]

And woosh!

We didn't at some point. Just like right now we don't have the answer to this. I'm actually surprised you've managed to not get that.



We also cannot see the moment of a lot of past events that we've determined. Your argument is one of pure ignorance.

No it is not. We will never be able to go back in time and see it. Even if we replicate it now, we are replicating life from life forms that exist NOW in the environment that exists NOW. We are not replicating it as it existed then and, as I already pointed out, barring a time machine we will never be able to replicate the past to be what it was when abiogenesis occurred.

In my personal opinion it was caused by something very minor and the replication is what started it off and it kept going. Like a spark during Big Bang, a random occurrence.

I've seen a good comment that states that just because it requires Intelligence to understand how something happened, doesn't mean it requires intelligence for it to happen. I think that's what a lot of Creationists don't understand.

But to me it's not some giant magic mystery that we need to solve. Probably a blip in the stars set it off. And here were are. I'm not impressed with morons trying to pass off "Philosophy" as science.

 

[Belz...]

No it is not. We will never be able to go back in time and see it.

Gee, I guess all of history is a sham, then. I guess when we see a crater made in the past, there's no way for us to know how it was formed.

But to me it's not some giant magic mystery that we need to solve. Probably a blip in the stars set it off. And he were are. I'm not impressed with morons trying to pass off "Philosophy" as science.

What in the blue hell are you babbling about?

 

[truethat]

History is filled with lots of bad science because morons equivocated Philosophy with science. Understanding what we can observe and examine (the sun, the birds flying) is not at all the same thing as understanding something we cannot see and cannot replicate bar a time machine.

The fact that this difference eludes you is why your statements are so ridiculous and not even worth discussing.

 

[Fudbucker]

Not at all, since the two theories are entirely separate. The aliens, after all, came from somewhere, too.

If the two theories were "entirely separate", there wouldn't be a direct causal chain that links the two. As someone earlier pointed out, when evolution is mentioned in biology textbooks, abiogenesis is also mentioned. Evolution is just a subset of an overarching theory of life that includes abiogenesis, evolution, germ theory, sexual reproduction, etc. (I think this was brought up by another poster).

Your point about aliens needing to have evolved from somewhere else is relevant.

 

[Belz...]

History is filled with lots of bad science because morons equivocated Philosophy with science. Understanding what we can observe and examine (the sun, the birds flying) is not at all the same thing as understanding something we cannot see and cannot replicate bar a time machine.

The fact that this difference eludes you is why your statements are so ridiculous and not even worth discussing.

Speaking of sophism, what does this even mean? I asked you once for clarification and your answer is more nonsense, indicating that you, in fact, have nothing to say. Either make your meaning clear or admit that you're not saying anything of value.

 

[truethat]

That distinction, life vs non-life, wouldn't be meaningful then. We already have computer simulations of evolving systems, those simulations aren't alive by any common definition.

This is similar to the point I am making. Seems to me people try to make magic out of it like "life POPPED" and then it started all life on the planet. IMO the cause of life was probably a non life glitch. A start in a replicating system that over time became life as we know it today.

I think we glorify it too much as some sort of "special thing" when it's probably completely ordinary. That's what I mean when I say "Intelligence to understand something doesn't mean it requires intelligence for it to happen."

So for example, the old adage about the complexity of an eyeball. An eyeball only seems sophisticated to us as we understand it. It seems complex to us. But it an unto itself, it's just an organic development.