No God, but created?

[LastPoet]

So, you have questions for Biology? Good, start by reviewing already covered ground.

[genkaus]

Imperfect replication that caused all of the things required for life as we know it: a heart, stomach, lungs, kidneys, liver, brain, how to process oxygen... Don't you find it odd that imperfect replication would randomly create all of the organs needed for life. Take away any one of the organs mentioned, and we don't exist.

Nope. Not in the least.

The answer is still, we don't know. It does, however, move us away from the proposition that life started here and by means of only one cell 'accidentally' knowing how to split and transfer all of its information to the next cell.

It moves us away without getting us anywhere. And the proposition is not and has never been that "life started here and by means of only one cell 'accidentally' knowing how to split and transfer all of its information to the next cell".

[orogenicman]

Did it have "some kind of programming on learning how to adapt"? What gives you that idea? In all likelihood, all it had was the programming for imperfect replication and an error in one such replication resulted in existence of "adaptive programming". Not mind-boggling at all.

Imperfect replication that caused all of the things required for life as we know it: a heart, stomach, lungs, kidneys, liver, brain, how to process oxygen... Don't you find it odd that imperfect replication would randomly create all of the organs needed for life. Take away any one of the organs mentioned, and we don't exist.

Then you are just pushing the envelop one step back. Where did those supposed beings in another dimension come from?

The answer is still, we don't know. It does, however, move us away from the proposition that life started here and by means of only one cell 'accidentally' knowing how to split and transfer all of its information to the next cell.

Fish don't have lungs, yet they exist. Evolution is not random, in case you didn't know.

The idea that life started "accidentally" by one cell is an indication that you don't understand biology. Evolution occurs in populations, not in individuals, and is never accidental. A dog cannot give birth to a cat, and one cell doesn't arise from the primordial soup. An entire population of cells do in away akin to the notion of throwing together two different organic compounds will result in a third. Its biochemistry, dude. We just don't know all the stoichiometry yet.

[MindForgedManacle]

I'm sure this has been talked to death, but it keeps coming back to haunt me.

I am a full blown atheist in the sense that I am one-million percent positive that there is no perfect mystical magical god. That said, has anyone actually looked at the implications derived from the idea that all life on this planet started from one teeny-tiny microscopic cell?



The information in that first living cell goes way WAY beyond mind-boggling. Then to imply that this cell was created naturally (without any intelligent assistance whatsoever) is simply not fathomable. Though I will probably miss a lot of them, have a look at what instructions had to have been in that first cell:

1. You will replicate yourself in exact detail.
2. You will transfer all the information on replication to the other cells.
3. When there are enough cells you will combine with them to make complex organisms.
4. Instead of cell division you will teach the complex cells how to reproduce asexually.
5. You will adapt to your environment and transform into all manner of plant life, fish-life, and all life on land.
6. You will then teach life to reproduce by using two partners.
7. In living things you will create hearts, lungs, kidneys, livers, bladders, stomachs, intestines, colons, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, throat, glands, hair or fur, limbs, tails, claws, brains...

ALL of this information was in that first cell in one form or another.
And, this all occurred naturally?

Give me aliens having created this cell. Give me a scientist in another dimension playing with life in a petri dish where our universe resides.

But even as an atheist I find it really REALLY hard to swallow that life occurred by random chance.

Thanks for reading.

Perhaps you don't know that abiogenic hypotheses don't - so far as I know - involve the spontaneous generation of a complex cell. Rather, they tend to begin with self-replicating molecules.

The more you know...

[LostLocke]

The other side to this is that word, information.
It keeps coming up over and over again. The problem is that it's being completely misused in this context.

"Information" in a cell/DNA is what we, as humans, project onto it.
But there is no inherent information or data in there at all. Everything that occurs at the cellular/DNA level is just "what happens" based on laws of chemistry and physics. Nothing more nothing less.

[bennyboy]

The other side to this is that word, information.
It keeps coming up over and over again. The problem is that it's being completely misused in this context.

"Information" in a cell/DNA is what we, as humans, project onto it.
But there is no inherent information or data in there at all. Everything that occurs at the cellular/DNA level is just "what happens" based on laws of chemistry and physics. Nothing more nothing less.

You can say this about ALL things, not just genetic information. A wave doesn't really exist-- it's just a bunch of particle wave functions vibrating in space, each functioning individually based on its physical properties (which happen to add up to what we see as a wave). A person doesn't really exist-- it's just a bunch of particle wave functions vibrating in space.

But as soon as you start talking about people as existent things, then you have to extend that conceptual umbrella to body parts, cells and DNA as well. You can't philosophize the parts out of existence while insisting on the reality of the whole.

[Minimalist]

The answer is still, we don't know.

And that is good enough. We don't need to invent magical sky-daddies like the theists do so they won't piss in their pants.

How long has science really been working on this stuff? Think about that and about how far we have come. Give them another 100 years.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

So, you have questions for Biology? Good, start by reviewing already covered ground.

Agreed. Jiggerj, You have a rather warped view of how adaptations came to be and how replication works, just read some books instead of asking strangers on the internet to teach you.

[Walking Void]

1. You will replicate yourself in exact detail. 2. You will transfer all the information on replication to the other cells. 3. When there are enough cells you will combine with them to make complex organisms. 4. Instead of cell division you will teach the complex cells how to reproduce asexually. 5. You will adapt to your environment and transform into all manner of plant life, fish-life, and all life on land. 6. You will then teach life to reproduce by using two partners. 7. In living things you will create hearts, lungs, kidneys, livers, bladders, stomachs, intestines, colons, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, throat, glands, hair or fur, limbs, tails, claws, brains...

Mutation, mutation, mutation, mutation.

And look how far We are to the very beginning of cells:

http://www.jcvi.org/cms/research/project...l/overview

We are producing them. If nature did what they did in the lab, it might be our lifelong coincidence.

[LostLocke]

You can say this about ALL things, not just genetic information. A wave doesn't really exist-- it's just a bunch of particle wave functions vibrating in space, each functioning individually based on its physical properties (which happen to add up to what we see as a wave). A person doesn't really exist-- it's just a bunch of particle wave functions vibrating in space.

But as soon as you start talking about people as existent things, then you have to extend that conceptual umbrella to body parts, cells and DNA as well. You can't philosophize the parts out of existence while insisting on the reality of the whole.

I'm not getting the connection between existence and information here.

I don't think anyone is denying the existence of the human body, its parts, or the cells that make it up.
It's whether or not someone or something intentionally encoded it with "information" to do what it does.