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The origin of life is in fact the ONLY interesting scientific question because without life no other question arises. Also, the fact that there are individual

The origin of life is in fact the ONLY interesting scientific question because without life no other question arises. Also, the fact that there are individual proteins that must be found in a search space that is on the order of 10^70, while only 10^50 living organisms have ever existed on Earth puts to rest the “random mutation” theory of how life evolved. There was a time when mathematicians in the academy openly mocked the biologists who bought into the “random mutation plus natural selection” creation myth, but sadly those days are over because raising the obvious questions now puts an academic career at risk. It is commonly assumed that it is impossible to definitively prove the existence of God, but in fact the existence of life is a definitive proof of the existence of God, given what we now understand about molecular biology. Here is an interesting book: The Stairway To Life: An Origin-Of-Life Reality Check https://www.amazon.com/dp/1734183705/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_DA9KQS8AB72P8QANY3NR https://www.amazon.com/dp/1734183705/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_DA... Frankly it is game-over for atheism from a strictly empirical perspective.

andrewflnr 4y ago
I used to think this, but the work of Jeremy England (IIRC) has convinced me that the emergence of life is thermodynamically favored. FWIW I'm not down voting.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  I've seen a lot of handwaving in that direction, but I've never seen a convincing argument.
vmception 4y ago
Cell theory origin stories don’t rely on an existing being willing something into existence, or steering improbable events The domain of the supernatural simply covers less and less things as our collective understanding expands
- jononomo 4y ago
  You’re making a “god of the gaps” critique — but the origin of life is not merely a “gap” — it is the ONLY interesting scientific question in existence (because without life no other question arises) and it is better described as “an infinite chasm” than a “gap”. The more we learn about it the wider the chasm gets and the more compelling the argument for God becomes.
  - vmception 4y ago
    How has the chasm gotten wider? “We” is an interesting euphemism for “you”. I’m content with the randomness. I also think you are limiting your approach to who you are responding to: athiesm is a belief system about there not being a God, there is a different word for people who just don’t care at all.
    - jononomo 4y ago
      In Darwin’s day the cell was not understood and it was assumed to be a simple blob — now we can see inside the cell and can observe astonishing complexity.
songeater 4y ago
Second the other poster: this question should not be "out of bounds"/downvoted but do read what Jeremy England has to say...
ajuc 4y ago
1. evolution doesn't even try to explain origin of life, it's completely independent matter. 2. your math seems sketchy but even assuming it's fine - there's no requirement for life to search for these proteins on Earth. Even if it had 10^-20 chance of happening on any given planet - there's more planets than 10^20. It's not surprising that SOMEONE wins the lottery, it's only surprising if a predetermined person wins it.
- jononomo 4y ago
  How does my math seem sketchy? If anything I was generous in my estimation of how many living organisms have ever existed.
  - gamblor956 4y ago
    Their are trillions of microorganisms on and in the human body (10^13), and their are a several billion humans (10^10), so there are more than 10^23 living organisms just taking into account humans and their bacterial biomes. That doesn't include the several billion other fauna, or the unquantifable number of microorganisms living on/in them or in the water and soil. For example, a liter of water contains a million phytoplankton, half a million zooplankton, and over a billion bacteria. The ocean contains about 10^40 liters, which comes out to over 10^50 living organisms just in terms of bacteria, not including higher-order life forms (or non-living self-organizing organic constructs like viruses). If anything, you are grossly understating the amount of living organisms currently alive.
    - jononomo 4y ago
      10^23 is a speck in the ocean compared to 10^50. There are only 10^90 elementary particles in the entire universe.
      - gamblor956 4y ago
        That's just humans and their biota, dude. You're clearly ignoring the second paragraph, so I guess the problem with your math is simply that your ignoring everything that disagrees with your worldview. Also, physicians don't know how many elementary particles there are in the entire universe, since we don't actually know what the bulk of the entire universe is made of yet, so your 10^90 is clearly just made up.
dekhn 4y ago
I think the big three science questions are: how did the current universe come to be, how (and how many times) did life form, and how did the neural correlates of consciousness arise? The first of those two is interesting even if there isn't any life around to appreciate it. I think your statements about the protein search space and the number of living organisms are kind of specious. The whole point of evolution is that it can search large spaces effectively- certainly the entire 10**70 (or whatever the size of "protein sequence" or "protein structure" space really is), hasn't been sampled, in the same way that proteins don't explicitly fold by enumerating through every single possible physical conformation. Nothing about molecular biology proves or supports the argument of the existence of a supreme being.
- debacle 4y ago
  I'm starting to grow more confident that we'll solve #3 in my lifetime.
- jononomo 4y ago
  Consciousness clearly preceded life because it is apparent that life is the result of intelligent design. You just have to snap out of your naturalistic, materialistic framework. For a lot of people a naturalistic starting point leads them to a naturalistic conclusion, which obviously begs the question and is merely a different kind of faith — one that can no longer withstand empirical inquiry.
  - dekhn 4y ago
    you're starting from a strong conclusion that has no scientific support. I can't snap out of a naturalistic, materialistic framework, because that's the only one consistent with all the observed evidence. There is no reason to continue arguing for your position, as it is not going to convince anybody.
    - jononomo 4y ago
      In fact I myself have been convinced by argument. You state that a naturalistic, materialistic framework is the only one consistent with all the observed evidence, but of course it is not consistent with the observed evidence regarding the existence/origin of life, which is what we’re discussing (and which is the only interesting question). I have referenced a book in my original post that spells the whole argument out.
Fezzik 4y ago
The origin of life (organic material arising from inorganic material) is actually not that interesting of a question - abiogenesis explains it just fine. Fairy tales from illiterates are absolutely not a better theory absent extraordinary evidence to support the hearsay-upon-hearsay-upon-edited-hearsay-upon-hearsay (ad nauseam) claims. Please, all, don’t let this type of unscientific non-thinking go unchecked.
- edgyquant 4y ago
  Abiogenesis is the question of how life formed, and is the only field where aliens (albeit in the form of proteins on comets) are a legitimate scientific advocation. Don’t take away the mysticism of how life arose by pretending we’ve answered the question and can easily explain it, or pretending a scientific explanation is somehow at odds with conceptualism.
  - Fezzik 4y ago
    Abiogenesis has nothing to do with aliens: it’s the conclusion of “[t]he classic 1952 Miller–Urey experiment [that] demonstrated that most amino acids, the chemical constituents of proteins, can be synthesized from inorganic compounds under conditions intended to replicate those of the early Earth.” It’s terrifying that basic science can be dismissed so easily. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
    - wingspar 4y ago
      I see your Wikipedia link and raise you a Nature article.. Summary about how the test equipment of Miller-Urey wasn’t accounted for in the experiment. “It finds that the precise composition of the apparatus housing the experiment is crucial to amino acid formation.” General interest science article: https://bigthink.com/hard-science/miller-urey/ https://bigthink.com/hard-science/miller-urey/ Nature.com article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-00235-4.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-00235-4.pdf
      - 4y ago
Layke1123 4y ago
Which god(s)? Checkmate.
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andrewflnr 4y ago

I used to think this, but the work of Jeremy England (IIRC) has convinced me that the emergence of life is thermodynamically favored. FWIW I'm not down voting.

pfdietz 4y ago
I've seen a lot of handwaving in that direction, but I've never seen a convincing argument.

vmception 4y ago

Cell theory origin stories don’t rely on an existing being willing something into existence, or steering improbable events The domain of the supernatural simply covers less and less things as our collective understanding expands

jononomo 4y ago
You’re making a “god of the gaps” critique — but the origin of life is not merely a “gap” — it is the ONLY interesting scientific question in existence (because without life no other question arises) and it is better described as “an infinite chasm” than a “gap”. The more we learn about it the wider the chasm gets and the more compelling the argument for God becomes.
- vmception 4y ago
  How has the chasm gotten wider? “We” is an interesting euphemism for “you”. I’m content with the randomness. I also think you are limiting your approach to who you are responding to: athiesm is a belief system about there not being a God, there is a different word for people who just don’t care at all.
  - jononomo 4y ago
    In Darwin’s day the cell was not understood and it was assumed to be a simple blob — now we can see inside the cell and can observe astonishing complexity.

songeater 4y ago

Second the other poster: this question should not be "out of bounds"/downvoted but do read what Jeremy England has to say...

ajuc 4y ago

1. evolution doesn't even try to explain origin of life, it's completely independent matter. 2. your math seems sketchy but even assuming it's fine - there's no requirement for life to search for these proteins on Earth. Even if it had 10^-20 chance of happening on any given planet - there's more planets than 10^20. It's not surprising that SOMEONE wins the lottery, it's only surprising if a predetermined person wins it.

jononomo 4y ago
How does my math seem sketchy? If anything I was generous in my estimation of how many living organisms have ever existed.
- gamblor956 4y ago
  Their are trillions of microorganisms on and in the human body (10^13), and their are a several billion humans (10^10), so there are more than 10^23 living organisms just taking into account humans and their bacterial biomes. That doesn't include the several billion other fauna, or the unquantifable number of microorganisms living on/in them or in the water and soil. For example, a liter of water contains a million phytoplankton, half a million zooplankton, and over a billion bacteria. The ocean contains about 10^40 liters, which comes out to over 10^50 living organisms just in terms of bacteria, not including higher-order life forms (or non-living self-organizing organic constructs like viruses). If anything, you are grossly understating the amount of living organisms currently alive.
  - jononomo 4y ago
    10^23 is a speck in the ocean compared to 10^50. There are only 10^90 elementary particles in the entire universe.
    - gamblor956 4y ago
      That's just humans and their biota, dude. You're clearly ignoring the second paragraph, so I guess the problem with your math is simply that your ignoring everything that disagrees with your worldview. Also, physicians don't know how many elementary particles there are in the entire universe, since we don't actually know what the bulk of the entire universe is made of yet, so your 10^90 is clearly just made up.

dekhn 4y ago

I think the big three science questions are: how did the current universe come to be, how (and how many times) did life form, and how did the neural correlates of consciousness arise? The first of those two is interesting even if there isn't any life around to appreciate it. I think your statements about the protein search space and the number of living organisms are kind of specious. The whole point of evolution is that it can search large spaces effectively- certainly the entire 10**70 (or whatever the size of "protein sequence" or "protein structure" space really is), hasn't been sampled, in the same way that proteins don't explicitly fold by enumerating through every single possible physical conformation. Nothing about molecular biology proves or supports the argument of the existence of a supreme being.

debacle 4y ago
I'm starting to grow more confident that we'll solve #3 in my lifetime.
jononomo 4y ago
Consciousness clearly preceded life because it is apparent that life is the result of intelligent design. You just have to snap out of your naturalistic, materialistic framework. For a lot of people a naturalistic starting point leads them to a naturalistic conclusion, which obviously begs the question and is merely a different kind of faith — one that can no longer withstand empirical inquiry.
- dekhn 4y ago
  you're starting from a strong conclusion that has no scientific support. I can't snap out of a naturalistic, materialistic framework, because that's the only one consistent with all the observed evidence. There is no reason to continue arguing for your position, as it is not going to convince anybody.
  - jononomo 4y ago
    In fact I myself have been convinced by argument. You state that a naturalistic, materialistic framework is the only one consistent with all the observed evidence, but of course it is not consistent with the observed evidence regarding the existence/origin of life, which is what we’re discussing (and which is the only interesting question). I have referenced a book in my original post that spells the whole argument out.

Fezzik 4y ago

The origin of life (organic material arising from inorganic material) is actually not that interesting of a question - abiogenesis explains it just fine. Fairy tales from illiterates are absolutely not a better theory absent extraordinary evidence to support the hearsay-upon-hearsay-upon-edited-hearsay-upon-hearsay (ad nauseam) claims. Please, all, don’t let this type of unscientific non-thinking go unchecked.

edgyquant 4y ago
Abiogenesis is the question of how life formed, and is the only field where aliens (albeit in the form of proteins on comets) are a legitimate scientific advocation. Don’t take away the mysticism of how life arose by pretending we’ve answered the question and can easily explain it, or pretending a scientific explanation is somehow at odds with conceptualism.
- Fezzik 4y ago
  Abiogenesis has nothing to do with aliens: it’s the conclusion of “[t]he classic 1952 Miller–Urey experiment [that] demonstrated that most amino acids, the chemical constituents of proteins, can be synthesized from inorganic compounds under conditions intended to replicate those of the early Earth.” It’s terrifying that basic science can be dismissed so easily. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
  - wingspar 4y ago
    I see your Wikipedia link and raise you a Nature article.. Summary about how the test equipment of Miller-Urey wasn’t accounted for in the experiment. “It finds that the precise composition of the apparatus housing the experiment is crucial to amino acid formation.” General interest science article: https://bigthink.com/hard-science/miller-urey/ https://bigthink.com/hard-science/miller-urey/ Nature.com article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-00235-4.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-00235-4.pdf
    - 4y ago

Layke1123 4y ago

Which god(s)? Checkmate.

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