3 ms·

If yes, where does their dna (or the equivalent of it) comes from? You are just kicking the can a bit further.

by Voloskaya 6y ago

yters 6y ago
Somewhere else! Dna is too marvelous for evolution, it cannot have originated here!
- Voloskaya 6y ago
  And yet we have very good evidence it indeed has. If life originated somewhere else, it landed here before DNA evolved.
  - yters 6y ago
    What is the evidence? Seems hard to have evidence for anything billions of years ago given we don't have historical records past a few millenia. It is all guesswork past that point, and the patterns of organisms and their complexity makes an earth origin of DNA extremely improbable if not impossible. Try reading through a graduate level book on bioinformatics to marvel at the sheer ingenuity, for lack of a better word, of what our dna is capable of far exceeding anything our best engineers can do. I find it impossible to believe mutation and natural selection can do better, even given billion year timescale and all of history's biomass. Just look at how ineffective genetic algorithms are in computer science.
    - Voloskaya 6y ago
      You can look up origin of DNA there is a ton of good resource, but one of the main reason is that we know all life on earth does not use the same DNA, some domain uses DNA based on a certain set of protein while some other domain uses DNA based on another set, which is very strong evidence that DNA was 'invented' multiple times. So if the building blocks of life arrived from somewhere else, it was at best RNA not DNA. But must of all I find your reasoning puzzling, you find DNA marvelous (which it is) and thus assumes it must have come from somewhere else. What does this 'somewhere else' has that we don't have here? The Universe is relatively homogeneous.
      - yters 6y ago
        No idea where it came from, but if someone found a computer in the middle of the desert and said it evolved over millions of years, I would be doubtful. DNA is many orders of magnitude more finely adapted and complex than computers, and to boot does much more with 6GB than our best coders. It is just inconceivable that random mutation and natural selection can do this. Just try your hand at a genetic algorithm to see just how incapable they are. Anyways, just because we don't have a good explanation is no reason to substitute an obviously false explanation. That would be just as bad as creationists saying God did it, since both shut down looking for better ideas.
        Voloskaya 6y ago
        > No idea where it came from Yes that's why I am suggesting you go read some research about it from people that know a thing or two about the subject. Just because you personally, with an outsider perspective and no specific knowledge about this field, have a tough time believing DNA could have evolved here does not make it so. The state of our understanding stops at RNA not at DNA. So if something came from somewhere else, once again, it was RNA. You don't get to draw the boundaries of what we know and don't just based on your gut feeling and cheap analogies.
        yters 6y ago
        I have researched the topic extensively, and no one has any idea. It is all just speculation that fails when you try reducing the ideas to practice. Can you recommend what you consider hard evidence?

If yes, where does their dna (or the equivalent of it) comes from? You are just kicking the can a bit further.

yters 6y ago

Somewhere else! Dna is too marvelous for evolution, it cannot have originated here!

Voloskaya 6y ago
And yet we have very good evidence it indeed has. If life originated somewhere else, it landed here before DNA evolved.
- yters 6y ago
  What is the evidence? Seems hard to have evidence for anything billions of years ago given we don't have historical records past a few millenia. It is all guesswork past that point, and the patterns of organisms and their complexity makes an earth origin of DNA extremely improbable if not impossible. Try reading through a graduate level book on bioinformatics to marvel at the sheer ingenuity, for lack of a better word, of what our dna is capable of far exceeding anything our best engineers can do. I find it impossible to believe mutation and natural selection can do better, even given billion year timescale and all of history's biomass. Just look at how ineffective genetic algorithms are in computer science.
  - Voloskaya 6y ago
    You can look up origin of DNA there is a ton of good resource, but one of the main reason is that we know all life on earth does not use the same DNA, some domain uses DNA based on a certain set of protein while some other domain uses DNA based on another set, which is very strong evidence that DNA was 'invented' multiple times. So if the building blocks of life arrived from somewhere else, it was at best RNA not DNA. But must of all I find your reasoning puzzling, you find DNA marvelous (which it is) and thus assumes it must have come from somewhere else. What does this 'somewhere else' has that we don't have here? The Universe is relatively homogeneous.
    - yters 6y ago
      No idea where it came from, but if someone found a computer in the middle of the desert and said it evolved over millions of years, I would be doubtful. DNA is many orders of magnitude more finely adapted and complex than computers, and to boot does much more with 6GB than our best coders. It is just inconceivable that random mutation and natural selection can do this. Just try your hand at a genetic algorithm to see just how incapable they are. Anyways, just because we don't have a good explanation is no reason to substitute an obviously false explanation. That would be just as bad as creationists saying God did it, since both shut down looking for better ideas.
      - Voloskaya 6y ago
        > No idea where it came from Yes that's why I am suggesting you go read some research about it from people that know a thing or two about the subject. Just because you personally, with an outsider perspective and no specific knowledge about this field, have a tough time believing DNA could have evolved here does not make it so. The state of our understanding stops at RNA not at DNA. So if something came from somewhere else, once again, it was RNA. You don't get to draw the boundaries of what we know and don't just based on your gut feeling and cheap analogies.
        yters 6y ago
        I have researched the topic extensively, and no one has any idea. It is all just speculation that fails when you try reducing the ideas to practice. Can you recommend what you consider hard evidence?