1. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #116964 by rainbow on January 27, 2008 at 11:15 pm

It seems as if the adherents of the Gospel of Abiogenesis are not open to the questioning of the tenets of their Faith!

2. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #111538 by rainbow on January 15, 2008 at 12:48 am

Steve:
"We believe this because Titan probably has that kind of chemical environment, and its atmosphere is rich with amino acid precursors."

A couple of problems.

What do you mean by rich?
10^-6 M is a figure I've seen.
Not very 'rich' at all. In fact it is lower than the concentration of amino acids that you'd get from the water you boiled an egg in.

The primordial 'soup' in greatly misleading and has been discounted by even most of the advocates of Abiogenesis. Also it seems that very few believe that amino acids were part of the building blocks used to make up the Original Replicator.

...so no rich soup. Not even a thin gruel.

"You seem to be working hard to find escape routes from my arguments.... I am wondering what your motivation is."

I can't escape from arguments that aren't there.
As I said there are a lot of Perhapses, Supposings, Ifs and Maybes.
Solid evidence?
None.

My motivation is honourably subversive.
Just as Religion has rightly been criticised for blocking the advancement of Science, so too grasping at the Mythologies of Abiogenesis will do the same.

It is only by ruthlessly questioning our assumptions, that we can hope to made any advances.

Don't you agree?

3. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #110448 by rainbow on January 11, 2008 at 7:20 am

Steve:
"They are a very small subset of all possible organic compounds, but they are very common indeed in the kind of environment of the early Earth. They are common everywhere. We see amino acids in meteorites."

Common?
No. They are found in exceedingly low concentrations. Cytosine not at all.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/96/8/4396

'A different life form from a different abiogenesis is not likely to follow the same chemical path.'


"We have no way to determine this."

Logically if the first replicator could not have contained cytosine, then some other chemistry must have been involved. Therefore more than one chemistry MUST be possible.

"the first origin of life would most likely change the environment so as to reduce the likelihood of any subsequent origins."

There is no basis for this statement. It could be argued rather that it INCREASED the likelihood of subsequent origins, since the first origin would have resulted in an increase in the concentration of new biosynthetic compounds (Cytosine for example)

4. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #109059 by rainbow on January 8, 2008 at 8:33 am

JFH:
"rainbow, I don't understand where you're coming from."

That is intentional, since I've no desire to be pigeonholed.

I stated above that I make no assumptions about the nature of a Designer.

"You do understand what the problem of infinite regress is, don't you?"

Only if you are considering it from a finite linear time frame.
But that is going way off topic. Perhaps we can discuss it elsewhere.

5. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #109053 by rainbow on January 8, 2008 at 8:26 am

Steve:
"What matters is can we use what they are made up of - amino acids, lipids."

I'm talking about the basic chemistry:- nucleic acids, amino acids, sugars.
These are a very small subset of the possible organic compounds - yet they are common to ALL forms of life on Earth.

A different life form from a different abiogenesis is not likely to follow the same chemical path.

...but even if it did.

There is chirality. A life form containing right-handed protein, and left-handed DNA can't be consumed by life as we know it on earth today.

If there were many such abiogenesis events, some would be left, and some would be right. Otherwise chemically identical. Following the same chemical processes, but unable to interact.

BTW left-handed DNA has been made, and is not eaten up by microbes.

This actually leads to an interesting topic WRT synthetic life.

Would it be safer to make it with left, or right DNA?

left would be less likely to infect existing life, but then would also be immune to predation.

...just something to think about.

6. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #108494 by rainbow on January 7, 2008 at 4:24 am

sent:
". I think rainbow is assuming that the chemistry of the Early earth was as inhomogeneous as it is today. This is a faulty assumption according to the fossil record, the planet was amazingly homogeneous in chemistry for a long long time. "

I make no such assumption. There are two possibilities, life formed first in an isolated zone (such as our puddles), or it formed in an open zone (such as an ocean).

If we consider the isolated zone model, then we can have increased concentrations due to evaporation or adsorbtion. This gets us over the concentration dilemma to some extent, however it is a stretch of the imagination to consider that only one such isolated zone existed in hundreds of millions of years over the entire surface of the Earth. We would have to consider that if abiogenesis were a likely event, then many such suitable isolated zones existed and that life would have arisen independently and evolved in parallel many times. As stated above, early life had no means of mobility, so it would not be able to colonise other isolated zones. We'd then expect these different life forms with different chemistries to evolve and adapt to their particular environments. There is no evidence for this in any fossil record, nor in any existing life forms.

Now we can consider the open zone. If we consider the concentration of suitable building blocks for life to be low but reasonably constant over the zone, then as life grew from it's original abiogenesis point it would have been limited by the rate of diffusion of new building blocks and food. Thus growth would be linear rather than exponential.
That means that other points for abiogenesis would not have been colonized very quickly and that multiple life forms with different chemistries should have arisen, if abiogenesis were a likely event. Again we should expect some evidence in the fossil record or present life forms. There is none.


"Once the first cannibalizing replicators emerged they would have rapidly spread through out the then much more homogeneous environment consuming useful submolecules. "

How would they do that, having no means of movement?
If they were 'cannabalizing' then surely they would show preference to predation of life forms with the same chemistry. After all they would be made up of the same building blocks. You don't go to a scrap yard specialising in Toyota parts to get spares for your vintage Ford, do you?


". In the early Earth the diversity was not in phenotypes selected through natural selection but rather in molecular types being nothing more than standard chemical affinities. "

If this were so then they'd be chemically stable, and would not require, or benefit from fast replication.


"From this perspective there was a much higher likelihood of chance molecular interactions producing new more complicated molecules."

Why? I know of no scientific principle that would support this. Can we create laboratory conditions that will result in 'new more complicated molecules'?
If so, does complexity increase with time, or do we find that these complex molecules break down back into simpler components, as we'd expect from our Free Energy equations?



"We'll probably never know the level of such an extinction event(s) since sufficient proterazoic fossils don't exist. "

Nor do we even know if there was any such extinction, for that matter.


"The emergence of a rich oxygen atmosphere was necessarily toxic to whatever anaerobic forms that existed prior to the transition. Today their numbers are far smaller than aerobic life. "

There are conditions on Earth where anaerobic conditions exist and persist. There would have been many niches for anaerobes, before during and after transition, so there is no reason to suppose extinction. Why should life forms having a different chemistry to those existing today have any greater difficulty adapting to an oxygen atmosphere than those we see around us? Surely the laws of evolution apply to them as well.

7. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #107093 by rainbow on January 4, 2008 at 4:04 am

Steve:
"they seem to have been hand-waved away in favour of small numbers"

Hardly. You've not been able to address my questions concerning the Rate Equation. I didn't make up the laws if chemistry and they must apply if abiogenesis is to be accepted as something more than Mythology.

8. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #107089 by rainbow on January 4, 2008 at 3:55 am

epee:
"So the probability is that we would be alone in the universe."

No. We can't predict the probability from a single event. All we know is that IF abiogenesis is correct, then the probability is not more than 1 on an earth-like planet over a couple of billion years.

9. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #107064 by rainbow on January 4, 2008 at 2:58 am

Tony:
"But, even if it only happens on one in a 100 suitable planets, that's still a lot."

Indeed. We have still not advanced from multiplying small numbers by big numbers.

If it happened on one planet in a quadrillion suitable planets and only one in a quadrillion planets were suitable, there'd not be enough possibilities in the universe.

Would you then postulate multiple universes?

10. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #106654 by rainbow on January 3, 2008 at 8:20 am

Tony:
"Note that one difference between science and religion is that science is still searching for the answer, while the religions never looked for it."

We're not talking about religion - so that's off topic.

If you want to discuss the Great Original Designer, then open a new thread.

"I admit, that the likelihood of one abiogenesis is small enough to not expect two different results in the same neighborhood."

Neighbourhood being the entire surface of the Earth?

11. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #104923 by rainbow on December 30, 2007 at 2:54 am

Tony:
"I guess I should remind you that a flask is much smaller than Earth."

Indeed it is.
However you must consider that we can achieve concentrations a billion times greater in a flask, than you'd have in the so-called primeordial soup. A second order reaction then implies the reaction rate is a billion billion times greater in the flask.

The argument has been made that puddles could have been the way to concentrate the building blocks. By evaporation of a lake say to a flask sized isolated system.

Possibly, but while solving one dilemma, it creates others.

Ferinstance the original replicator didn't have legs to walk to the next puddle. How did it then 'eat up' all the other replicators?

12. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #104121 by rainbow on December 28, 2007 at 12:10 am

Lots of 'could be' there.

Lets us examine the simple chemistry scenario.

We can easily recreate the simple chemistry of the early Earth, but none of those simple chemistry systems exhibit increased complexity due to replication.

You might argue that we haven't looked hard enough yet - however it is also pointless to do so, since simple systems do NOT require negative entropy to survive. Therefore the laws of natural selection don't apply and cannot apply.

It's a Chicken and Egg dilemma.

13. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #103874 by rainbow on December 27, 2007 at 7:07 am

Steve:
"RNA would be good for both purposes"

RNA is a DNA-like thingy.

It'll do.

However if you put all the building blocks of RNA in a flask and keep them under conditions of the early life world - you don't get RNA.

Not in a billion years.

14. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #103861 by rainbow on December 27, 2007 at 6:26 am

Going back to the entropy definition.

ALL life forms MUST copy themselves at a greater rate than they decompose.

The original replicator must have been able to do this, which implies at least the complexity of our coded polymer. Otherwise it would have simply reverted to the building blocks.

15. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #103854 by rainbow on December 27, 2007 at 5:46 am

I don't see the problem. With a water based life form based on carbon chemistry the 'polymer containing a code that can copy itself' definition - would appear to fit adequately.

As a more general case, in order to fit the Laws of Thermodynamics - Life is a complex sytem that can copy itself faster than it is degraded by entropy.
All living emtities die.

Simple systems do not require themselves to be copied to survive since they are at a thermodynamically stable state given their environment.
A crystal will for instance by dislocations on its surface form a more complex shaped crystal. In nature these are seem as twinned crystals, dendritic crystals and the like. However these are determined by external conditions NOT an internal code. If the are placed in conditions of recrystalisation, they will revert to original form. The complexity is lost and there is no memory of the change.

The life form HAS to have a memory or code in which changes are passed to the next generation. And it can't be complex without having a polymeric structure.
In other words a DNA-like thingy.

Ergo for carbon chemistry based life 'polymer containing a code that can copy itself' is good enough.

16. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #103830 by rainbow on December 27, 2007 at 2:03 am

Steve, please clear up my confusion.

You say:
"No, as assuming life started as an information-bearing polymer is far too specific. It could well have been simple self-catalysing chemical reactions in lipid vesicles, for example."

Now you say:
"...but life is a different matter. It needs information-storing structures that can reliably replicate, "

17. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #103820 by rainbow on December 27, 2007 at 12:34 am

Ty:
"How about providing some evidence to support your ideas of intelligent design. And saying abiogenesis seems pretty unlikely so it must have been intelligent design does not cut it."

I've no ideas about Sapient Design.

Up to now it was stalemate.
No evidence to show that Sapient design was possible, no evidense to show that Abiogenesis was possible.

Now we know that it IS possible to Design life.

Sapient Design 1 - Abiogenesis 0

It is up to Abiogenesis to score a goal of its own to equalise the score.

Observation of the formation any replicator anywhere in the univeerve would do it.

18. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #103819 by rainbow on December 27, 2007 at 12:25 am

Steve:
"The idea of a small so-called "Goldilocks Zone" around each star in which life survives on Earth-type planets is going to look pretty naive if (as I think is possible) we discover life in the seas of Europa, of Callisto, perhaps even of Enceladus."

This bothers me as well.
Why sould life exist under only a very limited set of circumstances?
Surely all life need not be DNA, DNA-thingy, polypeptide, or even carbon based. Why do they need water, couls another solvent say liquid CO2, ammonia, or hydrocarbons. Does it even need to be in solution phase. What about solid and gas replicators? Can we rule out the possiblity even in plasma phases?


Do replicators even need Chemistry - they do surely exist in computer programs.

19. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102952 by rainbow on December 24, 2007 at 3:08 am

BMM:
"How does "Sapient Design" differ from Intelligent Design? Don't they mean the same thing? "

To me they do, but it seems as if some nutters called Creationists have hijacked the term.
As I've no inclination to defend their point of view, we can use the term 'Sapient Design'.
OK?

20. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102917 by rainbow on December 23, 2007 at 11:37 pm

Steve:
"And, the exponential nature of replication would easily, I believe, dispose of the "why did it not happen more than once" argument. If a replicator arose in the supposed "primordial soup", then it would not have been very long before there was little soup left for anything else to arise in. "

This is a very weak argument.
An exponential rate of growth can exist only where there is a very large excess of food and building blocks.

It has been guessed that the primordial soup contained 10^-6 M organic compounds.
Assuming the early replicators used up half of this, their rate of growth would halve (actually less). Eventually there would be no nett growth ie a steady state.

We can observe this in a petri dish in the lab every day. The growth medium is NEVER all used up.

21. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102911 by rainbow on December 23, 2007 at 11:03 pm

Steve:
"If you don't want to be associated with Creationism, then don't use its phrases."

Then I'll make you happy by using another term, say Sapient Design?

The use of capitals is to refer to a specific event or object. We talk about the 'Sun', meaning or nearest, there are other 'suns'.
...just to clarify.

Back to topic:
"No, as assuming life started as an information-bearing polymer is far too specific. It could well have been simple self-catalysing chemical reactions in lipid vesicles, for example."

Is the ANY observed behaviour of lipid vesicles showing any evolution ie becoming more complex and showing better surval characteristics in a more complex form.

If so, do these globules show exponential growth?

22. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102218 by rainbow on December 22, 2007 at 3:17 am

BMM, you're employing the fallacy of guilt by association.

I thought this was a website for rationalist discussion, not Ad Hominem.

Argue against what I say, not against who you think I might represent.

OK?

23. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102213 by rainbow on December 22, 2007 at 2:49 am

Steve:
"Because, today, such interesting compounds either get oxidised or get eaten. "

Some do but many stick around for a long time. We can find DNA and fragments of it thousands of years old. Also new interesting compounds are being released from dead organisms all the time.

The concentration of these interesting compounds is thousands of times higher on Earth today than on Saturn's moon.

Basic Chemistry tells us that we're millions of times more likely to find a new replicator on Earth today than discovering it on Titan, or indeed on the pre-life Earth.

In the lab we can increase these concentrations even further. Yet them pesky replicators just won't form.

24. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102210 by rainbow on December 22, 2007 at 2:32 am

Steve:
"Why assume life got started with DNA?"

I don't. It was just an example.

It would start with a polymer containing a code that can copy itself. I don't know of a reasonable shorthand for this.
Can we call it a DNA-like thingy?

25. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102209 by rainbow on December 22, 2007 at 2:26 am

Steve:
"That was my point about life changing the environment, such as through oxygenation."

I've a few problems with this.

1. There is no evidence to suggest that oxygen inhibits the formation of replicators.

2. There are plenty of places on Earth that are anoxic.

3. If there are purely physical and chemical laws that favour the formation of replicators, why would they not apply in an oxidising environment.
Are potential replicators not adaptable?

4. There were a billion or so years before photosynthesis became big. Wasn't this a good opportunity for different chemistries to form replicators?

26. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102206 by rainbow on December 22, 2007 at 2:15 am

roach:
"How can anyone logically argue that life can ultimately come from an intelligent designer?"

The scientists in Maryland would probably consider themselves intelligent, and they spend a lot of their time designing experiments.

I think Intelligent Designers is an appropriate descrption.

27. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102203 by rainbow on December 22, 2007 at 2:01 am

Ty:
"Well, the numbers:

Number of galaxies ~500,000,000,000 (500 billion = 5x10^11
Number of stars per galaxy ~500,000,000,000
Number of planets per star maybe 1 on average? Who knows?
Number of planets with potential for life per planet 0.1?
Number of places on said planet? Given that all it requires is in effect a puddle, perhaps 1,000,000?
Number of years 2,000,000,000
Number of potential reactions per years? 1,000?

Total possibilities: 5x10^11 x 5x10^11 x 1 x 0.1 x 1x10^6 x 2x10^9 x 1x10^3 = 5x10^40

cf a billion billion billion to 1 = 10^-27"

Thank you for the numbers.
I think you're a bit low on some.
A replicator wouldn't necessarily have to come from a puddle. I think any drop of water would do.
We have 10^25 potential places on Earth for replicators to form.

We know that DNA can add bases at the rate of 100s per second - so a 1000 reactions per year is a bit miserly.
How about 10^10 reaction per year?
OK we didn't have any enzymes around, and without catalysts we don't get replication of DNA at all.

We can then be confident that the number of reactions per year is narrowed down to the range of 0 to 10^10 per year.

Of course any Chemist will tell you that a reaction rate is meaningless unless you take into account concentration. The formation of a replicating molecule from a non-replicating one would be a second or higher order reaction. (In fact in the lab, we need a whole series of second order reactions, and they all have to be in the right sequence).

Now a second order reation has a reaction rate proportional to the square of the concentration of the reactants.

The reactants would be organic bases as mentioned in the lead article. Plus some glue to stick them together. And some energy source.

28. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102194 by rainbow on December 22, 2007 at 1:38 am

Steve:
"How do you know they are lousy odds? "

Would you buy a lottery ticket, when there was only one winner in 2 billion years?

29. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102193 by rainbow on December 22, 2007 at 1:33 am

Steve:
"All kinds of interesting compounds are formed in its atmosphere."
Certainly there are, but that's not the question.
There are many, many more interesting compounds on earth today, in the seas, atmosphere, even miles below the earth - and in higher concentrations by many orders of magnitude than there were 'in the environment of the Earth billions of years ago'.

...so my question remains why was the formation of replicators probable then, but we don't see replicators popping up everywhere?

30. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102191 by rainbow on December 22, 2007 at 1:27 am

Tony:
"However, if you go to a particular lottery winner's house, you should not be surprised if he's only won one particular lottery one time and his entire family spends the same kind of money."

I wouldn't be surprised.
I would however consider it illogical to assume that if I went to the house of a wealthy person, that they were likely to be lottery winners.

It is a matter of chance. More people are wealthy due to their and other's efforts, than lottery winners.

We are being asked that life arose on Earth as a result of some universal lottery - with very, very lousy odds.

31. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102189 by rainbow on December 22, 2007 at 1:19 am

Steve:
"We think that the formation of the building blocks of biochemistry was pretty easy in the environment of the Earth billions of years ago."

Do you have evidence of this, or is it purely a matter of Faith?

32. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102187 by rainbow on December 22, 2007 at 1:17 am

Roger:
"The pure creationist drivel has a seriously daft explanation, that mankinded was created from a pile of dirt pretty well instaneously and the rest of life was created pretty well instantaneously from nothing at all. What is the probability of that happening?"

I suggest that you find a Creationist and argue the point with them.

"Rainbow, so what is your alternative explanation of abiogenesis?"

Logically, we can consider that life arose by an intelligent designer, or by chance.
We now know that life can be created by intelligent designers.
We don't know that it can be created by chance.

As for the nature of the designer, I've no idea. Probably beyond the capabilities of my imagination.

Should we rather stick to facts and reason?

33. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102183 by rainbow on December 22, 2007 at 1:02 am

Steve:
"The problem with you religious guys is that you confuse "compatible with" as "evidence for" (the existence of life is compatible with the existence of God, it is not evidence for the existence of God), and you always beg the question. You assume that the origin of life is rare because you want to involve God to explain it."

Blimey!
...and I get accused of strawmanism?

Let me pull that rug from underneath you. I've no religion.
My argument is purely against the assumption that a replicator could form by chance.
More exactly a viable replicator capable of evolving into more complex organisms.

"They co-exist because they have all found different niches - different ways of living."
Then surely different life forms with different chemistries would find niches and survive?
In fact they should be more likely to survive since they are not competing for the same resources.

"We don't observe it happenening here any more because life changes the environment."

Explain how life makes the spontaneous formation of replicators from non-living matter impossible.

34. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101943 by rainbow on December 21, 2007 at 8:23 am

JFH:
"If so, it might have started more than once, but natural selection ended up weeding out all but one."

That would be the opposite of what we observe in nature.
Different life forms coexist.
From whales to microbes - but they all have the same basic chemistry. They all have evolved from the same original replicator.

35. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101939 by rainbow on December 21, 2007 at 8:11 am

Steve:
"For all we know, it could be a pretty easy thing to happen."

If it were easy, why have we not observed it?

"So, as soon as anything got started that could use the resources around it to multiply, it would have left little left for anything else to start up."

Problem. If it used up all the resources, it would itself become extinct.

"It could well be ..."

"It is easy to imagine ..."

Yes, indeed.

36. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101819 by rainbow on December 21, 2007 at 2:20 am

All you're saying is that if you multipy a small number by a big number, you might get a value above 1.

However if the chances of a relicator apearing from non-living molecules is less than a billion billion billion to one - you run out of possible life supporting planets.

37. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101765 by rainbow on December 20, 2007 at 11:40 pm

JFH:
"Likewise, when natural forces work to combine all sorts of stable elements in all sorts of configurations, those configurations that can naturally duplicate themselves (like crystals, for instance) will be more stable in terms of longevity--not because of their endurance, like planets, but because it is constantly making copies of itself."

...yet we can find one and only one example of a configuration that can copy itself, and evolve into greater complexity. Crystals don't do it. Stable elements don't do it. Stars don't do it.

Only life forms on Earth do it.

Don't you find that a little disturbing?

38. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101764 by rainbow on December 20, 2007 at 11:32 pm

Tony:
"we probably would if we could watch the right environment for a couple billion years."

I would assume that the Earth is the right environment.
Yet we find ALL life on Earth using the same chemistry. Even down to the chirality of the molecules.
That points to a single origin of life.

One occurence in the entire lifetime of the Earth represents an extremely unlikely event.

39. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101265 by rainbow on December 20, 2007 at 6:53 am

JFH:
"Natural selection is not a random toss of the dice;"

Natural selection requires replicators, so can't be involved in the formation of the first replicator.

Stars do not form by natural selection.

Question:
Why do we not observe the formation of new replicators from non-living matter in nature?

40. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101185 by rainbow on December 20, 2007 at 4:20 am

Dia:
"But "goddidit", isn't the default fill-in answer."

I didn't say it was.

The problem I have is that it requires a great deal of Faith to believe that the first replicator could've arisen by pure chance.

That is also not a great fill-in answer.

41. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101178 by rainbow on December 20, 2007 at 4:00 am

Dia:
"doesn't need a magic life spark breathed into it."
Clearly - unless you define magic as technology we don't yet understand.

"Evolution had to kick in somewhere to create the first creator."

How did evolution kick in to form the first replicator?

You can't have evolution without replicators, can you?

42. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101172 by rainbow on December 20, 2007 at 3:47 am

This proves that life can be Created.
It doesn't prove that life could arise spontaneously by chance.