(January 5, 2010 at 10:45 pm)Tiberius Wrote:(January 5, 2010 at 11:42 am)rjh4 Wrote: Ah. You mean like concluding that life must have formed from non-life in a naturalistic manner without being able to explain how this could/did happen.Nobody has concluded this. It has been theorized, and many theories have developed that attempt to show how it could have happened. So I disagree that we haven't been able to "explain" it. We've got some pretty good explanations; having a demonstration where we replicate the same results is a different matter.
(January 5, 2010 at 11:21 pm)theVOID Wrote: Last I read there are over 20 hypothesis on Abiogenesis that are compatible with various supposed atmospheric compositions in the early earth as well as the main laboratory experiments that have demonstrated the viability of basic chemical reactions causing components essential for life, such as all 20 of the known amino acids, Ribonucleotides that self replicate into strings of RNA etc etc.
The proposition that this is viable is very well supported, though we will likely never know exactly which circumstances lead to the initial formation or even if only one explanation actually happened and not a series of conditions in multiple locations.
So Adrian and Void think we have some pretty good and well supported explanations for a naturalistic formation of life from non-life. Yet Adrian says "having a demonstration where we replicate the same results is a different matter." So we have these explanations that have not been replicated. How good could the explanations be then? We know so much information about how cells work, etc., but has any scientist been able to create even a living cell from non-living raw materials (to clarify I am talking about something along the lines of abiogenesis, not using an egg/sperm)? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. (And before anyone replies that my argument is fallacious, I am not claiming that my argumentation "proves" abiogenesis wrong, I am merely stating reasons why I do not think it is convincing and why I think my statement to E ("You mean like concluding that life must have formed from non-life in a naturalistic manner without being able to explain how this could/did happen.") was accurate.)
@Void
Regarding your comment on the demonstration of the viability of producing all 20 known amino acids, do such demonstrations provide also for the viability of how the L amino acids segregated enough from the D amino acids in a naturalistic manner such that life could come from non-life? Remember, the only amino acids that occur in living things are L amino acids and most reactions will produce a mixture of L and D amino acids.
