Atheists!!

Howie said:
How do you prove life evolved from non-living chemicals?
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You don't. Science does not do proof, science works on evidence. There is evidence that life evolved from non-living chemicals.

If you remove all the non-living H₂O molecules from a living organism, then that organism will die. That is a small part of the evidence. Life is an emergent property of certain non-living molecules.
 
rossum said:
You don't. Science does not do proof, science works on evidence. There is evidence that life evolved from non-living chemicals.

If you remove all the non-living H₂O molecules from a living organism, then that organism will die. That is a small part of the evidence. Life is an emergent property of certain non-living molecules.
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So the science isn't actually settled?
 
Howie said:
How do you prove life evolved from non-living chemicals?
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By doing science.

We don't understand exactly how life started, but when we look at life it's full of non living chemicals arranged in a particular way that produces living creatures. In fact the fine tuning argument for God is, amongst other things, about how the strengths of the four known universal forces are just right to allow organic molecules to form and produce life.

As someone else has said, life depends on non living chemicals. Take certain chemicals, or minerals away from a living creature, iron for example, and it will die. This shows non living chemicals play a key role in life.
 
Howie said:
I know you can't prove it, but what does that mean?
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An emergent property is a property that is present in some arrangement of parts, but does not exist in any individual part.

A wheel is not a car. An engine is not a car. The bodywork is not a car. The exhaust is not a car, and so on for all the various individual parts. However when all those not-a-car parts are assembled, there is a car.

Material life is assembled from various energy flows and molecules. None of the flows or molecules are individually alive, yet the combined molecules, together with the energy flows, are alive.

SteveB said:
So the science isn't actually settled?
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No it is not. Abiogenesis is still a group of possible hypotheses; RNA world for example. Science it still working on eliminating the incorrect hypotheses to try to come up with a working theory.

Evolution -- which follows on from abiogenesis -- is a good theory. It tells us how that first just-about-alive cell evolved into the many species, past and present, that have appeared on earth. Abiogenesis gets us from a chemical soup with an energy input, to that first just-about-alive cell.
 
Howie said:
How do you prove life evolved from non-living chemicals?
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Not quite an answer to your question, but there's nothing about, say, plant life that isn't fully describable by nothing but chemicals that are non-living when considered in isolation.
 
rossum said:
No it is not. Abiogenesis is still a group of possible hypotheses; RNA world for example. Science it still working on eliminating the incorrect hypotheses to try to come up with a working theory.
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Rather interesting how many people today have been using the phrase- settled science.


rossum said:
Evolution -- which follows on from abiogenesis -- is a good theory. It tells us how that first just-about-alive cell evolved into the many species, past and present, that have appeared on earth. Abiogenesis gets us from a chemical soup with an energy input, to that first just-about-alive cell.
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So, using your description about emergent properties, and assemblages, just how much information was contained in the cellular system that first emerged from the sludge?
 
Whatsisface said:
By doing science.

We don't understand exactly how life started, but when we look at life it's full of non living chemicals arranged in a particular way that produces living creatures. In fact the fine tuning argument for God is, amongst other things, about how the strengths of the four known universal forces are just right to allow organic molecules to form and produce life.

As someone else has said, life depends on non living chemicals. Take certain chemicals, or minerals away from a living creature, iron for example, and it will die. This shows non living chemicals play a key role in life.
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Interesting. What's lacking is an explanation of how they assemble?
 
rossum said:
An emergent property is a property that is present in some arrangement of parts, but does not exist in any individual part.

A wheel is not a car. An engine is not a car. The bodywork is not a car. The exhaust is not a car, and so on for all the various individual parts. However when all those not-a-car parts are assembled, there is a car.

Material life is assembled from various energy flows and molecules. None of the flows or molecules are individually alive, yet the combined molecules, together with the energy flows, are alive.
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Thanks, rossum.
 
SteveB said:
Rather interesting how many people today have been using the phrase- settled science.
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Evolution is settled science, as are astronomy and chemistry. Abiogenesis is still being worked on, as is cosmology.

SteveB said:
So, using your description about emergent properties, and assemblages, just how much information was contained in the cellular system that first emerged from the sludge?
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Since we don't have any examples of that first cell, then all we can do is estimate. Certainly a lot less than living bacteria, which have been adding information for many generations.

However, that number was not zero, as is shown by Ekland et al (1995), which showed that random RNA sequences can contain functional information, ligases in that case.
 
Howie said:
Interesting. What's lacking is an explanation of how they assemble?
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The short answer is chemistry. Hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms assemble into water molecules. Carbon atoms assemble into a lot of different compounds, as was shown by the Miller-Urey experiment among others.
 
Howie said:
I know you can't prove it, but what does that mean?
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It means he can't prove it. You can't prove a God did it. What does that mean?
It means you can't prove a God did it.
If you can't prove something it doesn't mean the opposite position must be automatically correct.
 
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