The Official Perfection KOs Creationism Thread Part Two: The Empiricists Strike Back!

[El_Machinae]

One reason I can see is that te exact DNA is propagated indefinitely, the organisms based on it lose the ability to adapt. Evolution is built on not copying exactly. Not really a problem at the moment, as for the most part we're capable of adapting our environment instead. A lot of potential problems I can come up with get into the realms of speculative sci-fi stuff.

I'm not saying that humans are the pinnacle DNA arrangement - not at all. In fact, I can predict that various of my organs/stem cells will be eventually replaced with transgenic alternates.

However, evolution as a force of advancing human DNA is pretty well over. We can manipulate and optimize DNA much, much faster than nature can (with creatures of our reproductive strategy). As well, (like you said) we can change our environment/bodies in such a way as to negate any disadvantages we have.

We can change our bodies (our own bodies) better and faster than evolution will change our off-spring.

 

[El_Machinae]

Entropy is a certain thing.

All systems lose cohesion and collapse with time.

.

Kinda, but as long as there is a harnassable source of entropy available, life can halt and reverse entropy in its own locale.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Kinda, but as long as there is a harnassable source of entropy available, life can halt and reverse entropy in its own locale.

But ultimately, isn't complete breakdown a sure thing? I mean if we are really clever we can give ourselves a couple hundred billion years but in the end entropy will win and the universe will fall apart, right?

 

[CurtSibling]

Kinda, but as long as there is a harnassable source of entropy available, life can halt and reverse entropy in its own locale.

You have a point.

Mankind is capable of taking control and conquering the forces of the universe around us.

But not for an incredibly long period of time...

.

 

[El_Machinae]

But ultimately, isn't complete breakdown a sure thing? I mean if we are really clever we can give ourselves a couple hundred billion years but in the end entropy will win and the universe will fall apart, right?

It looks that way right now, that the Universe is in for the Long Cool. BUT, I think it's awfully early to say for sure that we cannot find other sources of energy.

Heck, (without engineering) we have 5 billion years left in our sun. That's a LONG time to collect a better picture of our long-term alternatives.

 

[Quasar1011]

In the end we will not find out how it happened, but we will find out how it can happen.

"can happen" is present tense. Why isn't life arising from DNA now?

 

[Leifmk]

"can happen" is present tense. Why isn't life arising from DNA now?

Basically because conditions are no longer suitable for complicated chemical compounds to stew around and eventually end up self-replicating? Because there are living things pretty much everywhere, so anything like that is likely to get incorporated into something that's already alive (i.e. "eaten")?

 

[Sahkuhnder]

"can happen" is present tense. Why isn't life arising from DNA now?

It may be. If it was it would likely happen unnoticed by us, perhaps on a distant planet.

 

[sanabas]

"can happen" is present tense. Why isn't life arising from DNA now?

Because conditions now aren't the same as conditions then. There's a bit more competition for resources now.

Besides, unless it happened as part of an observed experiment, how would you know if life did arise now? It might be a completely new unicellular organism that didn't exist last week, it might be a newly discovered unicellular organism that's been around for millenia.

 

[carlosMM]

"can happen" is present tense. Why isn't life arising from DNA now?

as the others have said: conditions are totally different on earth now.

btw, this is also the answer to the idiotic claim that since left-and right-spiralling molecules are created 50:50 in lab settings, and life is built from one type, someone must have created life.
Why?

Well, oncee you have ONE SINGLE LIVING ORGANISM in the 'primordial soup', what's it gonna do? Live: consume, replicate, consume, replicate...... basically, eat all the non-living stuff there. So, whicher makes it to life first, right or left, will eat the other half, alonjg with the 99,9999999% of its own type that didn't make it.

 

[ironduck]

Basically, yes. I believe that in the afterlife we will have a greater capacity to experience joy, and that it will be far better (even for those who were bad in this life) than anything we have here. Also it is obvious that we currently have bodies that are suboptimal or imperfect. I believe that that will be improved on in the Resurrection.

But assume for a moment that there is no afterlife and you get the choice between a very long life as you know it here or just a regular length human life and no afterlife. Which would you choose?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

To be honest, I wouldn't take a long life even if I thought there was no afterlife. I would understand that oblivion is the ultimate fate of humanity, and I would attempt to live my life to the fullest in the time nature allotted me, but I would not try to extend it because to be honest, I think I would get sick of it. And at the moment of death, it wouldn't matter to me whether I had lived 30 years up to then or 300. Those years would be gone. I would accept the nothingness from which I had come and to which I knew I would have to return.

 

[El_Machinae]

I would attempt to live my life to the fullest in the time nature allotted me

I'm never satisfied with this, because I'm pretty sure that people commonly take unnatural steps to extend their lives.

I would not try to extend it because to be honest, I think I would get sick of it.

I can easily accept that this could happen. However, I have a feeling that in 100 years I'll be saying the same thing I'm saying now "Hey, I might get bored someday, but I'll give it another decade"

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Well, that is my opinion. Maybe at the moment of death, I would be rethinking things, And anyways, I am not going to criticize those who want to extend their life 'unnaturally', I just don't think I would want to go much farther than the limits set by our bodies (ie 70 years for most) and modern medicine.

 

[Quasar1011]

Because conditions now aren't the same as conditions then. There's a bit more competition for resources now.

Quote:
It may be. If it was it would likely happen unnoticed by us, perhaps on a distant planet.

So what you 2 are saying, is that there is only a certain time frame in which life can arise. Once life gets going, it will consume the other potential-life forms. This is why we must look for primordial life on other planets. Life can neither arise too soon, nor too late.

How much time is required for life to arise from DNA?

 

[Perfection]

How much time is required for life to arise from DNA?

Well that assumes that DNA came first, which is likely not the case. A lot of abiogenic thoeries hold that RNA came first, than life, than DNA.

As for the timeframe we're not exactly sure, but we do know that it's porobobly realtively short compared to the lifespan of the planet.

 

[El_Machinae]

Quasar: Hmmmn, no, that's not really what they're saying.

Under certain conditions, there is a %age chance life will arise (and then a %age chance that it will thrive). Once it arises, the %age chance of other (new) life arising diminishes, because the conditions for abiogenesis worsen. Basically, life consumes what it can. Evolution then spreads where it can go.

 

[Quasar1011]

Quasar: Hmmmn, no, that's not really what they're saying.

Under certain conditions, there is a %age chance life will arise (and then a %age chance that it will thrive). Once it arises, the %age chance of other (new) life arising diminishes, because the conditions for abiogenesis worsen. Basically, life consumes what it can. Evolution then spreads where it can go.

But another poster said that these conditions no longer exist on Earth today. Or is it still possible that life is springing from DNA or RNA, and then being immediately consumed by primitive cellular life forms, even today?

 

[carlosMM]

So what you 2 are saying, is that there is only a certain time frame in which life can arise. Once life gets going, it will consume the other potential-life forms. This is why we must look for primordial life on other planets. Life can neither arise too soon, nor too late.

How much time is required for life to arise from DNA?

You're right: the time's gone on earth. But I wouldn't say there's a TIME frame, but a CONDITION frame. It is quite easy to reproduce the conditions IF YOU KNOW THEM. After all, we know quite well the 'boundaries' in which life can exist. If you had enough time, money and space, you could create all possible conditions, and all their possible permutations over time, in lab settings. Given the fact that you can have a trillion molecules in a simple Erlenmeyer, no large sample should be needed. The chance that you'd get 'new' life is extremely high.

How long does it take - milliseconds, given the right conditions. Chemical reactions take place so extremely fast it is undeblieveabel. but getting the right conditions, and getting them to change (you will need different conditions for different processes that need to take place to get a molecule, a combination of several, and then later a cell), THAT can take forever. It really depends on conditions.


it is a bit like saying: how long does it take to make a car?

Depends - are all parts delivered on time? Do you screw in the scrwews by hand? How much stuff do you weld? Wiht what technique? Are you able to work on several components simultaneously? etc?

So, some companies build cars in hours, by hand you need weeks to months, depending on where you start (raw metal and oil or pre-formed parts etc).

Do you want the book title?


EDIT: El-M: I think you misunderstood Quasar.

 

[Sahkuhnder]

So what you 2 are saying, is that there is only a certain time frame in which life can arise. Once life gets going, it will consume the other potential-life forms. This is why we must look for primordial life on other planets. Life can neither arise too soon, nor too late.

How much time is required for life to arise from DNA?

Life may arise in other ways at other times given other environments. On this planet, based on our best analysis of the current data, yes, life here seemed to only arise in an environment that basically no longer exists on earth.

The time required is an even hazier answer. How many dice rolls are required for a given combination to occur? Could happen on your first roll, could take a very long time.