Luc Turpin

Because it is the main point of the thread and if we have not done so, then maybe there is another reason beyond low probability of success for not doing so that should be contemplated. If we close the door by creating life from nonlife then no other alternative explanation is required. Science has been very fast and efficient at explaining a lot of things. It has been less fast and effective and successful at explaining life. Is it low probability of success or something else? I forgot to mention computational biology. Does it not make it so much faster that we should have gotten the life recipe by now?

Convincing argument. Nonetheless, are we not able to manipulate variables that nature cannot do to get faster to the intended goal? Also, is it not faster to copy something that already exists? A monkey banging on a typewriter and getting out a shakespeare play would be in the realm of probability that you indicated. How about us humans typing away with a shakespeare play at hand and having to just copy away. Does that not at least make for a much higher probability of success?

The prospect of creating life has become more ELUSIVE than anticipated as a result of the increase in the number of steps required to make it happen and the level of complexity of the endeavour. Denver did not move away; it just got more complicated getting there. So, I could have said HARDER rather than FARTHER. The point still remains though that we have not done so, create life.

You get it that Denver was an analogy; not the real thing, right?

The point being made here is that we did not lose knowledge, but realized that Denver was FARTHER away than we thought. We got closer to Denver, but Denver got FARTHER away. We have the capacity to vastly accelerate the experimentation through technology and knoweldge. Mother nature used trial and error until it stumbled on the winning combination. We are not doing it this way, which should have dramatically increased the process of figuring out how its donw. 1- Hearth cells are not dead yet; just in a stupor. Electric reanimation does not work beyond a certain point! When cells are dead. Even after death, some cells continue to live. You can do things with those, but not with dead ones (e.g. transplantation). 2- Because I felt that we were in the semantics of things with your man-men example, not in the essentials of the debate. There will always be exceptions to a rule and this would be a minor one. Change men to humans and the problem goes away.

I would share your optimisim in turning nonlife into life if we were getting closer to doing it, but reiterate that what I have read on the subject matter seems to indicate that the process is much more complex than anticipated and that we are getting farther, not closer, in making it happen. Its not about "me"; it's about what the experts are saying that it is, and some-most are saying that it revolves around cells and what cells do! And agree that we may never-ever know. I start with cells for the living, which is a shared premise by many in the field of science. And I share the same point of view with many in the science field that viruses are a tricky one. They are so close to the edge of the living that some contend that they are while others say they are not. The only thing that I will add to this is that a lot of recent research seems to demonstrate that viruses do much more than invade and replicate. They have very sophisticated means of avoiding the imune system of organisms for example. To be honest with you, I din't quite get what MigL was getting at. It might be the same point that Zapatos is trying to make. I am not sure that I get your point, but here goes: Were cells created from water and sodium without the advent of cells? Take water and sodium and whatever, except life, and wait for it turn all to itself into life. So far, that has not been done. That life uses matter to its benefit or turns it into life is not controversial. It's doing it without life that is still not demonstrated.

We still don't know if viruses cut the grade to be considered alive. They do amazing things. A good example of you thinking that I am atacking you, while I am just trying to have a discussion with you by following your lead and adding to it! The inner layer of the trunk is dead, the outer layer is alive. Agree with this statement until one decides that a cell is the starting point for all the living So, then why have we still not been able to take nonlife and turn it to life? We have been hacking away at this one for ages and some in the field feel that we are getting farther not closer to being able to do so. And I acknowledge that if ever we are able to do so, then I will have to eat crow. Note: I am having difficulties with the "quote" function.

Evolution requires life for the process of change to occur. The other processes you identify do not. I am not saying that evolution has a goal or aim, but I am saying that with life involved, we just don't know. Hence, one of the unrecognized falacies of most jumping to the conclusion that it has no aim nor goal. It is either a crap game in which there is no aim or goal or something else; both options still remain on the table according to my lecture of the situation. And, I acknowledge that I might very well be wrong.

All of the stuff is in our bodies, but something happens for it to become alive. As far as we know for now, I can take all of this stuff and try and combine it to make it come alive and it will not. Then this something happening for it toe become alive, I guess, is what makes it living....matter. I did not come up with the expression, it was alsready in use; so much so that theories exist about the concept. And rocks also turn to sand. Homeostasis is not the only property that is not just a characteristic of living things. Replication is also a property that is shared by living and non-living things. A combination of all aforementioned properties including being a cell is what differentiates the living from the non-living.

I do have to admit that you have a point. It is in my nature to be skeptical, even of science. At least here, I acknowledged that MigL was right in pointing my nonsense.

Yup! define! Non-living matter: rocks, water, sand, glass and sun; "any form without a life, such as an inanimate body or object. Compared with the entity that has a life, a non-living thing lacks the fundamental units of life, a living cell that grows, metabolizes, respoonds to external stimuli, reproduces and adapts." - Biology online https://www.biologyonline.com/dictionary/non-living-thing Living matter: ability to reproduce, grow, move, breathe, adapt or respond to environment Obviously, should have used nonlife/life instead of non-living/living matter as I know of no such studies trying to make rocks come alive. Hence, probably the nonsense that you were pointing out. However, the point still stands that we have not been able to create the living from the non-living.

Nonlife: atoms, molecules, chemicals Life: cells, organisms Properties: cellular with its own outer membrane and containing a full set of instructions necessary for its operation and reproduction.

Discussions from neuroscientists saying that we are not getting closer! There are more theories now than before, with none being generally accepted by the neuroscientific community. It's just more mapping, of the "hardware"; it does not show very much about how matter produces thinking, except that the brain changes configuration for every type of thinking. It's a"software" issue then and this will not be resolved through more mapping. We have not been able to transform non-living matter into living matter. What makes us so sure that we can get a computer to think? I do not then see it as a complete non-sequitur. Agree, entirely agree.

We have been mapping the brain for ages and not getting closer to how it works. I don't share your optimisim. In the 480 million life span, nature and evolution advocated intelligence and consciousness only to the living, not the non-living. We have still not figured out how to take matter and turn it into living matter.

We still do not know how 130,000 cells and 50 million connections enable a fly to interact with each other and the world around it. Also, brains do not function like computers.

I was able to access SciaAm one without going through a paywall. It was readily accessible. Don't know why it was different for you!

I provided the wrong address in my original post for the third reference; You did not notice the mistake? Addresses two and three pointing to the same document? Were they read before making claims?

And what about the two others? I read all of them and gave captions to each of them. The point being made was that there are two sides and a middle ground to the debate. And one needs information from all sides before making a determination of who is right and who is wrong. What is bad faith about that? Better said that I can, here is the main question that sets this appart from the unsurprising: "How would independently evolving genes, exons, or other lengthy DNA strands gradually acquire the correct sequences needed to serve as components of a genetic program whose function will only be performed when all the needed strands are installed — in a species different from the one(s) in which the strands were written? - Brig Klyce Contradicting myself or me being insufficiently clear or mischaracterization of my saying? I will work on being clearer in my thinking to avoid giving the impression of contradicting myself. I will take a break here as I feel that I have gotten into trouble without realizing that I was in trouble until now.

The piece of gene came from another life form. It acquired the right sequence to be part of a genetic program for which its utility was required only in the future. That is puzzling to me and to others less ignorant than I. As requested https://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/abiogenesis.html And this one explains why it is not so https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html And this one says, well it's complicated https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html Got my answer without the agravation. You always see me as "black" or "white", and as the enemy of science for which I am not. What I am mostly asking in all of my posts and threads is "are you sure about it'? None have been discarded, but how they "operate" or "function" is very different from what was originally anticipated. For example, traits being present in the next generation instead of the long time-scale normally anticipated for a trait to act upon a life form. This is one example of many that might indicate that there is more to the story than what was originally anticipated from evolution. Symbiosis was not part of the original deal and contradicted the original notion of evolution that it was all about competition. Epigenetics was also not part of the deal and contradicted the original notion of evolution that it was mostly about genes and not the environment. I am tryng my damned best to be as coherent as possible, and agree that I am not all the time. I am also aware that what I am presenting is controversial and will elicit a strong reaction. At the very least, can we agree that the theory of evolution has undergone major significant changes since its early inception? It's old and not a scientific paper, but a good article for describing how far we came from and, I contend, how far we still have to go. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/mar/19/evolution-darwin-natural-selection-genes-wrong

I do not believe in cosmic ancestry, but would still want an opinion about this https://www.panspermia.org/threetests.htm

May I provide an example? An ancient gene stolen from bacteria set the stage for human sight" The eye is so complex that even Charles Darwin was at a loss to explain how it could have arisen. Now, it turns out that the evolution of the vertebrate eye got an unexpected boost—from bacteria, which contributed a key gene involved in the retina’s response to light. The work, reported today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, drives home the evolutionary importance of genes borrowed from other species. https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-gene-stolen-bacteria-set-stage-human-sight Notwithstanding the lack of reference and parroting, does the calculation makes sense or not? Again, trying to say in a different way that evolution has no goal or aim. Absolutely not, I do not see a theory as a rigid framework. Our disagreement is about if all of the changes have "changed" the "core" value of evolution. You say it has not and I say it has done so. From individuality struggling for survival through vertical gene transfer to a commonal approach where genes are shared through horizontal gene transfer. Sacrificing oneself for the betterment of the collective as some plants do is far away removed from red in tooth and claw. Can we really still consider genetics as being driven by selfish genes? Thank you for your words of wisdom; especially the last gem. Why say that I am ignorant......every one already knows this! While looking at leaves, you might have forgotten how the forest looks like, and I looking at the forest may very well not know how leaves look, but I am still looking at the forest. I guess this ends it.

Some say the latter scenario is probable; others say it is not; at least for matters related to abiogenesis. "Biologists currently estimate that the smallest life form as we know it would have needed about 256 genes. (See Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Volume 93, Number 19, pp. 10268-10273 at http://journals.at-home.com/get_doc/1854083/8551). A gene is typically 1000 or more base pairs long, and there is some space in between, so 256 genes would amount to about 300,000 bases of DNA. The deoxyribose in the DNA ``backbone'' determines the direction in which it will spiral. Since organic molecules can be generated in both forms, the chance of obtaining all one form or another in 300,000 bases is one in two to the 300,000 power. This is about one in 10 to the 90,000 power. It seems to be necessary for life that all of these bases spiral in the same direction. Now, if we imagine many, many DNA molecules being formed in the early history of the earth, we might have say 10 100 molecules altogether (which is really much too high). But even this would make the probability of getting one DNA molecule right about one in 10 to the 89,900 power, still essentially zero. And we are not even considering what proteins the DNA generates, or how the rest of the cell structure would get put together! So the real probability would be fantastically small." "Biologists are hypothesizing some RNA-based life form that might have had a smaller genome and might have given rise to a cell with about 256 genes. Until this is demonstrated, one would have to say that the problem of abiogenesis is very severe indeed for the theory of evolution." This is about life coming out of matter; not life persisting through the ages.

Agree with both, but with the following caveat; what happens when the genetic program is already in the organism, before the environment pushes for a certain need? There is evidence for it. The program is there before the need. What about that? Unexpected again. Trying to say in a different way that evolution has no goal or aim. Yes to the question, but how these modifications are acquired is a whole lot more complicated that the opening statement which was one random mutation at a time. The tree was not supposed to change from winter to summer; accepting that it does is a step forward. My contention remains though that the tree is also being transformed to something else by evidence. It is much-much more complicated than what was anticipated. It is as if life was trying to find any which way possible for it to survive; a very controversial and unproven contention. Or maybe it is just that so much time has elapsed between the beginning and now, that nature had time to go through so many scenarios and stumbled upon those that worked. Survival was an accident, not an intent. Only those that survive are able to tell the tale. It looks like a miracle, but it's not; it's only probability.

I did explain my position of no direction: "Random mutations occur and those offering a survival advantage get passed on to future generations. My comprehension is that beyond that, there is no sense of direction in evolution" Selection being random or not does not change the fact that according to 'dictum", evolution has no aim, no purpose, no goal; which was the point that I was trying to make. We are either insignificant things that happen to be standing on a piece of rock that is hurtling to nowhere in the vast expanse of nothingness of the universe, or there is something going on. You cannot have a piece of the pie without the pie. I reiterate, shaping forces (natural selection, sexual selection, drift and gene flow) do not change the fact that "dictum" states that annihilation is our ultimate faith. A non-random or random evolution does not change the outcome. And I will reiterate while coming back to the main topic of the thread that so many changes to the theory of evolution were required to reconcile it with evidence that the theory is unrecognizable from what it was. One change at a time does not seem much change, but all of the changes put together modifies the whole landscape dynamic of evolution. HGT, symbiosis, cladogenesis and punctuated equilibrium, epigenetic effects, plasmid sharing in bacteria, non-reductive aspects of macroevolution, population genetics, adaptive dynamics etc., where all unexpected, and in need of reconcilable requirements. So, I correct myself; the theory does not need to change as it already has done so throught change from a thousand changes. I do not know who should be doing this, but a discussion as to the implications of systhesis of theory on the human condition and our place in the universe is required to be undertaken as our current view of these seem to be outdated and based on a disproven belief system.

Random mutations occur and those offering a survival advantage get passed on to future generations. My comprehension is that beyond that, there is no sense of direction in evolution. However, as stated in the tittle of the article (Neutral Models of De Novo Gene Emergence Suggest that Gene Evolution has a Preferred Trajectory) and for other studies showing evolutionary convergence (including the one posted here), there appears to be more direction than anticipated to evolution. This runs counter to the dictum that evolutionary events are random. I could have also chosen one of the HGT articles. Evolution was all about VGT, then came HGT, which was a surprise in itself. However, it was considered a minor player in evolution in earlier days. But, again, recent research seems to suggest that it plays a very big role in evolution; again, a surprise. So, here we are with not only passing our genes to the next generation, but also someone else’s genes. Both of these (non-random and commonality rather than individuality) would be requirements for purpose, but not showing purpose in of itself.