Spontaneous Life Hypothesis:

[Hope12]

Hello Everyone,
Many today can look back over nearly half a century of speculation and thousands of attempts to prove that life originated on its own. If one does that, it would be hard to disagree with Nobel laureate Francis Crick. Speaking about origin-of-life theories, Crick observed that there is “too much speculation running after too few facts.� It is thus understandable that some scientists who examine the facts conclude that life is much too complex to pop up even in an organized laboratory, let alone in an uncontrolled environment.
If advanced science cannot prove that life could arise by itself, why do some scientists continue to hold to such theories? A few decades ago, Professor J. D. Bernal offered some insight in the book The Origin of Life: “By applying the strict canons of scientific method to this subject [the spontaneous generation of life], it is possible to demonstrate effectively at several places in the story, how life could not have arisen; the improbabilities are too great, the chances of the emergence of life too small.� He added: “Regrettably from this point of view, life is here on Earth in all its multiplicity of forms and activities and the arguments have to be bent round to support its existence.� And the picture has not improved.

Consider the underlying import of such reasoning. It is as much as saying: ‘Scientifically it is correct to state that life cannot have begun by itself. But spontaneously arising life is the only possibility that we will consider. So it is necessary to bend the arguments to support the hypothesis that life arose spontaneously.’ Are you comfortable with such logic? Does not such reasoning call for a lot of ‘bending’ of the facts?

What do you think, are facts being twisted out of shape to fit into the spontaneous life hypothesis?

Take care,
Hope12

[athon]

The problems arise from a mixture of ignorance, anthropocentric imagery and misperception of what's happening.

Life, in itself, is hardly an affair far removed from the laws of the universe. By nature, a living thing is a self-contained, evolving system of complex chemical reactions. There are numerous complicated chemical reactions in nature that are not perceived as being overtly special (as life is). This is ignorance. Sure, the fact that humans have a chemistry so complicated, they can 'perceive' of those self reactions...but there's no special rule to say how simple or complicated an environmentally sensitive chemical reaction need be.

Hence life is not a 'spontaneous' event; pre-life is merely an array of reactions that don't yet meet all of the requirements to be called living. Amazing, yes. But supernatural...no.

Athon

[KelvinG]

I don't think it makes any sense to throw our hands up in the air at some point and say "We can't explain how life arose. God did it!!"

Well, let's just assume for a second that God did do it. How did he do it? Shouldn't we ponder that. In fact, who is God? Where does he exist? Is he really omnipotent? How does he interact with our physical universe, etc, etc.
Suddenly the God theory becomes pretty difficult to comprehend.

Sorry, but I think we should never stop trying to explain phenomenon through naturalistic explanations. If this means our attempts to explain how life arose are never answered, so what? It's a far more productive method that just saying "Oh well, God did it" and giving up.
A Robert Carrol said "The God did it explanation explains everything and illuminates nothing."

[Frinkiak7]

Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean that it can't eventually be understood.

[lumos]

Originally posted by Hope12
Hello Everyone,
‘Scientifically it is correct to state that life cannot have begun by itself. Wrong. It is scientifically correct to say "We don't know for sure how life originated but we have some pretty good theories based on sufficient evidence. We are testing these theories to see if they are true.

If you are really interested in learning about the origins of life, here is a good starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

However, if you are just here to enlighten us by saying "I don't understand it, so GODDIDIT!", I'll let you know that you are wasting your time.

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by Hope12
Hello Everyone,
Many today can look back over nearly half a century of speculation and thousands of attempts to prove that life originated on its own.
Forget the words of Crick and Bernal.

We can already create viruses from off the shelf stock chemicals, its easy enough. From The BBC - Scientists Create Virus From Scratch (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2122619.stm):
Scientists have assembled the first synthetic virus.
The US researchers built the infectious agent from scratch using the genome sequence for polio.

... According to researcher Jeronimo Cello, the polio virus assembled in the laboratory is one of the simplest known viruses. "It was very easy to do," he said.
Its slightly more difficult to get a lot of organisms to interact with one another to form a "modern" cell, but viruses are more interesting. (One of the reasons we dont manufacture more viruses like this is because there is really no need, and more importantly we wouldnt want this information to lend it self to bioterrorists creating smallpox in underground labs.)

And of course, dont let that overshadow the contribution of the Urey-Miller experiments and subsequent replications, which have shown that amino acids can form readily under a variety of conditions.

We've come a long way in 50 years, and the origins of life are still a topic worth studying. There experiments replicating simple viruses and amino acids are much much more than speculation and hypothesis, they are meritable of being called science.

[SezMe]

Originally posted by Yahweh
We've come a long way in 50 years, and the origins of life are still a topic worth studying. There experiments replicating simple viruses and amino acids are much much more than speculation and hypothesis, they are meritable of being called science.
I'd like to underscore the timetable part of Yahweh's excellent post. Think about it - the modern version of evidence-based science has only been around for a teeny, tiny portions of even mankind's existence here. 200-300 years? And yet look at the knowledge we have gained, the technology that has been spawned, and the rate of new knowledge creation. For example, in less than 100 years we went from the first heavier than air flight to routinely riding in airplanes carrying hundreds of people whose wingspan is wider than that original flight!

Extrapolate this state of affairs 100, 200 or even 1000 years into the future and the mind boggles.

So the fact that we don't have an exact scenario for the beginning of "life" (however defined) but that we have numerous theories and tests that are getting at that very problem seems to me to be more astonishing than the fact that we don't know the details.

Edited to fix really sloppy writing.

[roger]

"And the picture has not improved."

Why do you say that? Are you familiar with, say, the recent work of Harold Morowitz on the citric acid cycle? His work is ongoing, but the buzz on the street is that he may very well have the answer to the genesis of life. I don't know - I'm not competent to judge. Are you?

[Z]

Hello, everyone.

I know this has been all covered well by my compadres, but I like to babble, so bear with me.

Originally posted by Hope12
Hello Everyone,

Hello yourself. Is this to be another hit and run thread?

Many today can look back over nearly half a century of speculation and thousands of attempts to prove that life originated on its own. If one does that, it would be hard to disagree with Nobel laureate Francis Crick.

'Argument from Authority' noted.

Speaking about origin-of-life theories, Crick observed that there is “too much speculation running after too few facts.� It is thus understandable that some scientists who examine the facts conclude that life is much too complex to pop up even in an organized laboratory, let alone in an uncontrolled environment.

Perhaps those scientists who are lazy, unimaginative, or just don't understand the nature of what they are studying...

If advanced science cannot prove that life could arise by itself, why do some scientists continue to hold to such theories?

Advanced science doesn't prove anything. Advanced science is a course in school.

Scientists don't prove anything either. They simply construct models that account for observed phenomena.

Thus far, the most logical model for the observed phenomena that we call 'life' is that it organized quite by chance, and has continued to develop complexity as the ages go by.

A few decades ago, Professor J. D. Bernal offered some insight in the book The Origin of Life: “By applying the strict canons of scientific method to this subject [the spontaneous generation of life], it is possible to demonstrate effectively at several places in the story, how life could not have arisen; the improbabilities are too great, the chances of the emergence of life too small.�

Ah - a proponent of the 'too improbably' concept.

I always find those who embrace this as a reason not to believe to be beligerently ignorant. Obviously, no matter how improbable an event is, it is still possible. Consider how extremely low the probability is for someone to win a lottery - well, for a specific person to win a lottery. Yet someone often does. Why? Because the number of combinations available and purchased exceeds a limit - don't ask me for what limit - by which the highly improbable becomes possible.

Now, examine these 'great improbabilities' that Bernal is bothered by versus the total sample size of 'The Universe' and tell me if that limit might again be successfully exceeded?

If the Universe is infinite, the problem gets even worse: no matter how improbable an event is, it will eventually happen in an infinite universe.

Any improbability might seem absurdly low; but once it happens, it happens. And it's not impossible as long as it's only improbable.

He added: “Regrettably from this point of view, life is here on Earth in all its multiplicity of forms and activities and the arguments have to be bent round to support its existence.� And the picture has not improved.

Actually, that's a very silly thing to say. Rather, it should be apparent that, since these extremely improbable things must have actually occured, we simply have to look at our world in the light of these things happening, and understand that the chances that we will ever observe them happening elsewhere is going to be even lower... but not impossible.

If there is a one in ten chance of a person drawing a particular card from a stack, and ten people draw cards, one might well be expected to draw that card. Depending on how many cards there are, and how many of that card there are, all ten might draw the card - or none might. For example, there might be 100,000 cards, of which 10,000 are the card in question; this technically works out as a 1 in 10 chance, but there might be dozens of sets of 10 who draw nothing, and finally a set which all draw the card in question. That's just the way it works.

Someone thinking that 'the arguments have to be bent round to support its existence' is clearly not being very smart.

Consider the underlying import of such reasoning. It is as much as saying: ‘Scientifically it is correct to state that life cannot have begun by itself.

No, it's really not. Scientifically, it is correct to state that the probability of life beginning by itself is small; but having actually happened, we should move on to how it spontaneously arose. To claim that 'life cannot have begun by itself' is to assume that it was impossible... not highly improbably.

But spontaneously arising life is the only possibility that we will consider.

Scientists don't say this, either. However, of available theories, it is the most sensible, and the best supported by evidence.

So it is necessary to bend the arguments to support the hypothesis that life arose spontaneously.’

Clearly wrong.

Are you comfortable with such logic? Does not such reasoning call for a lot of ‘bending’ of the facts?

Actually, no, it doesn't. What I am not comfortable with is morons who can't accept that low improbability [b]does not equal no probability[/quote]. 1x10^-1,000,000,000 does not equal 0.

What do you think, are facts being twisted out of shape to fit into the spontaneous life hypothesis?

Nope.

Take care,
Hope12

You too,
zaayrdragon

[Darat]

There is a rather large assumption going unchallenged here. It underlies the opening post and that assumption is that “life� is different to everything else we observe.

(Damn - Athon said it so much better!)

[Dr Adequate]

Originally posted by Hope12
Many today can look back over nearly half a century of speculation and thousands of attempts to prove that life originated on its own. Thousands of attempts? Could you name ten?

"Nearly half a century"? When it took more than two thousand years to reach our present understanding of gravity? If one does that, it would be hard to disagree with Nobel laureate Francis Crick. Speaking about origin-of-life theories, Crick observed that there is “too much speculation running after too few facts.� Quite so. I agree. Do you have any facts yourself, or do you just have speculation?A few decades ago, Professor J. D. Bernal offered some insight in the book The Origin of Life... You say that he was writing "a few decades ago", i.e. 30 or 40 years ago at least. You say that we have had "nearly half a century of research" on this subject, i.e. less than 50 years. We conclude that this man Bernal, who I've never heard of, by the way, was writing less than twenty years after the beginnings of the subject he's writing on, and is further away in time from us than from those beginnings.“By applying the strict canons of scientific method to this subject [the spontaneous generation of life], it is possible to demonstrate effectively at several places in the story, how life could not have arisen; the improbabilities are too great, the chances of the emergence of life too small.� Well, this is an interesting claim of Prof. Bernal's part. So perhaps we could see his reasoning?

No, of course we can't. Because you have never read this outdated book. Because you cribbed the text of your post, without acknowledgement, from this essay (http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:COuNBC19DhIJ:community-2.webtv.net/everafter2525/IsThereACreatorWho/page11.html+%22It+is+thus+understandable+that+some +scientists+who+examine+the+facts+conclude+that+li fe+is+much+too+complex%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&strip=1), didn't you?

If you can find any actual arguments against abiogenesis, feel free to share them. If all you've got is that you read on some stupid website that some guy thought there were arguments against it "a few decades ago" but you don't know what those arguments are, and the website doesn't say what they are, and you have never bothered to find out what they are, or what has happened in the intervening "few decades", and I can't look at these supposed arguments to see if they're any good --- then I am not impressed.

[SezMe]

Originally posted by Dr Adequate
No, of course we can't. Because you have never read this outdated book. Because you cribbed the text of your post, without acknowledgement, from this essay (http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:COuNBC19DhIJ:community-2.webtv.net/everafter2525/IsThereACreatorWho/page11.html+%22It+is+thus+understandable+that+some +scientists+who+examine+the+facts+conclude+that+li fe+is+much+too+complex%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&strip=1), didn't you?

Very well done, Dr. A. Nailed that little bit of Inadequacy right in the arse, I'd say.

[Dr Adequate]

I also googled on this Professor J. D. Bernal to find out who he was. Apparently he was a physicist (not a biologist) and, moreover, an "outspoken Marxist", and atheist, who wrote, amongst other things:The invocation of God, just because it can be done when faced with any intellectual or moral difficulty whatever, removed any necessity for a rational treatment of the world. Well, let's all take him as a guide. His dogmatic Marxist atheism is sure to illuminate science for us. Hooray!

You will notice that Fred Hoyle is also quoted in the cribbed essay --- the guy who thought that life came from outer space.

It seems that the same arguments will do equally well for people who believe in Stalinism, people who believe in space aliens, and people who believe in creationism.

[Bob Klase]

The complete quote from Crick is not given. According to http://bevets.com/equotes.htm what Crick wrote is

"Every time I write a paper on the origin of life, I determine I will never write another one, because there is too much speculation running after too few facts. Life Itself (1981) p.153

He also wrote (in the same year) that "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved."

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Dr Adequate
You will notice that Fred Hoyle is also quoted in the cribbed essay --- the guy who thought that life came from outer space.
Somewhat comically (from this vantage point), Crick himself also supported this idea.

[Just thinking]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Hello yourself. Is this to be another hit and run thread?

Looks that way to me ... so far.

[RandFan]

Originally posted by KelvinG
I don't think it makes any sense to throw our hands up in the air at some point and say "We can't explain how life arose. God did it!!"

Well, let's just assume for a second that God did do it. How did he do it? Shouldn't we ponder that. In fact, who is God? Where does he exist? Is he really omnipotent? How does he interact with our physical universe, etc, etc.
Suddenly the God theory becomes pretty difficult to comprehend.

Sorry, but I think we should never stop trying to explain phenomenon through naturalistic explanations. If this means our attempts to explain how life arose are never answered, so what? It's a far more productive method that just saying "Oh well, God did it" and giving up.
A Robert Carrol said "The God did it explanation explains everything and illuminates nothing." Great post.

It's kind of odd that people who have a problem with the attempt by science to explain the natural world and even its origins embrace all of the side benefits that derive from human scientific inquiry into the natural world (cars, medicine, phones, etc.). And BTW, much inquiry was opposed by religion. Though to be fair much was sponsored by religion also.

In any event, to progress we as humans had to stop assuming and start questioning. Now, if there are people who choose to believe that we can't answer some questions and therefore don't want to try then that is their prerogative. But to say the task is too difficult let's draw a conclusion from that difficulty and declare "god did it" is ignorance. BTW, you can count me as one who was so ignorant at one time.

[KelvinG]

Originally posted by RandFan
Great post.

It's kind of odd that people who have a problem with the attempt by science to explain the natural world and even its origins embrace all the benifits that derive from human scientific inquiry into the natural world.

To progress we as humans had to stop assuming and start questioning. Now, if there are people who choose to believe that we can't answer some questions and therefore don't want to try then that is their perogative. But to say the task is too dificult let's draw a conclusion from that difficulty and declare "god did it" is ignorance. BTW, you can coun't me as one who was so ignorant at one time.

What amazes me is that the attitude toward science often comes off as suspicion. Evolution? Hmmm, those pesky scientists are up to something with all this talk of us evolving from apes.
One of my favourites is alternative medicine folks who say "I don't trust doctors."

Can you imagine a scenario where medical doctors call a press conference and say "We've done all we can do to fight disease X, and we've decided that it must be God's will that people die from this infliction. Thus all research will be suspended."
This would be absolute madness!
But, isn't this the essentially the same argument that the "God did it" crowd wants applied to the spontaneous generation debate.
Hmmm, it makes me think that their real fear is that science might one day actually figure out how non-living matter became living. This ridiculous notion that the problem is just too complex to ever figure out so we might as well stop looking is just plain stupid.

[RandFan]

Originally posted by KelvinG
What amazes me is that the attitude toward science often comes off as suspicion. Evolution? Hmmm, those pesky scientists are up to something with all this talk of us evolving from apes. Oh I know, I met with my religious leader (I haven't officially left or cut off all links to my church) and we were discussing science. He spoke derisively of science and the arrogance of "man's wisdom". He alleged that "supposedly learned men spend too much time in pursuit of the philosophies of men and not in the search of the truth of god". Now this is an otherwise intelligent man who is also an engineer with a degree. Never mind the overuse of the word "men". This is just stupid in so many ways. Odd how these wrong headed pursuits of "men" turn up so much truth and the benifits of this truth is embraced by those who are otherwise suspicious of science. Great example Kelvin.

On one side we have the Smithsonian and Library of Congress, to name just two signifant examples of a vast and an incomprehensible, documented collective consciousness of the observable and natural world and on the other we have the Bible or the Koran or some other "scripture" lacking any standards for truth and nearly every concept controverted and without objective means to discern and find common ground on which to agree on.

How does one go in search of "god's truth"? It would seem to me that if there really is a god then the best bet still is modern science.

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by KelvinG
One of my favourites is alternative medicine folks who say "I don't trust doctors."
Brought to you from the depths of the FSTDT archive:
"Well they said she was indeed in a persistant vegetative state.

But I don't trust "science" anyways. That or the coroner was paid off by Schiavo himself."

chrisnorton, Sean Hannity Discussion Forum (http://www.hannity.com/forum/showpost.php?p=302060&postcount=8)

[RandFan]

"Well they said she was indeed in a persistant vegetative state.

But I don't trust "science" anyways. That or the coroner was paid off by Schiavo himself."

chrisnorton, Sean Hannity Discussion Forum Well yeah, when the evidence goes against you then attack the evidence. I just can't fathom the depth of willful ignorance. This is not a difficult case. It really isn't. There is a hell of a lot of evidence and it all goes to the side of Schiavo. But if you automatically distrust everything that conflicts with your world view then what is the point?