Woese's progenote hypothesis

so you disagree that at one point the universe didn't exist. you think it's always existed. what about earth, surely god did create it. and surely, he created it before he created life on earth, right? or have we all been misreading genesis. see, that's the problem. you play the what if game. why can't I propose my own what if? why is your what if about the chemicals explaining commonality right, and our what if about chance wrong?see, you want us to all believe in your what if, whether or not it's creationism or ID (i'm not sure which you are, but my guess is former). you want us to have that taught in our schools as science. well, that's just one, and only one what if story. and there are plenty of other stories about creation, pretty much one for every religion on the planet.playing the waht if game is dangerous. you have to back it up with evidence. evidence is, life isn't starting again and again today. but we do know that organic molecules can form on their own, given the right conditions. those conditions were met in hte atmoshpere of the early earth. you ask why can't life have started plenty of times. I gave you a possible scenario, which you reject as illogical. but let's deal with some facts here, okay.A) there was, at one point, no life on earth
B) there was, at a later point, life on eath
C) organic molecules, such as amino acids and nucleic acids, can form given the proper condition.
D) the only life we know of is carbon based and uses DNA/RNA
E) we know that the conditions for the creation of organic molecules existed on the early earth for quite some time, easily a million years.conclusion)at some point and time in earth's history, when hte conditions were right, life did get started. if life got started multiple times, our line of ancestry is the only one represented if other forms of life existed that did not use DNA/RNA (or the precursor forms that have been suggested) and were not carbon based. If these life forms did exist, that were not like us, they no longer exist as far as we can tell. if this is the case, we outcompeted them, or were more fit to live in the initial environment than they were.
the second possibility is that we are the only life form (carbon based, DNA/RNA, precursors) to have ever existed on this planet.tell me randman, how is my conlcusion illogical, given the facts. it's no longer a mere what if story, it's a what if story with facts. can you say the same of genesis?oh, one last thing. this comment betrays an ignorance as to what being fit entails. are cattle more fit than us? depends on the habitat, and their. cattle cannot do what we do--they can't build cities, develop technologies, nor are they as smart as us. but you know what, they are quite excellent at what they do. eating grass. their digestive system is much, much better at breaking down the grass, hay, that they eat, unlike our digestive system, which can't even break down cellulose. If we were to be a herd of grass eaters, those cows (cattle) would beat us out.the suggestion I find illogical is that the properties of chemistry should be our common ancestor, especially since the comm ancestor idea is a biological one, and deals with evolution. last time I checked, it doens't really matter what caused the first life to appear, in terms of evolution and common ancestors. because, the common ancestor is defined, pretty much, as being that organism(s) that gave rise to the life we see today by the methods and processes of evolution.notice the lack of chemistry?

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

such misunderstanding, again.I don't use the bible as scientific evidence. I was pointing out that your statement did not make any sense if you follow your own belief. I get the impression you are a creationist, furthermore, one that accepts that genesis is factual. I was poitning out the contradiction in your statment and genesis. genesis clearly implies that life, at one point, did not exist. and then god made life. contrary to your statement, that claimed that life has alwasy existed, which means that there never was a beginnnig, or creation event. in order to have a creation event, you have to have a point at which that which is being created did not exist.I believe I understand my reasoning process. while it isn't perfect, it's pretty damn good. better, at any rate, then your's which lead to the above contradiction. you believe in a creation, but no creation took place?what's inconsistent about my post? and you're right, new taxa aren't evolving. we only have domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. so you're right, we don't have any quikles. as to they way you probably meant it, you're wrong again. you do accept that speciation has occured, right? I mean, you all consider it microevolution and variations within kind, but species is below kind, right? and species is one of the taxonomic levels. hmm, your statement is false. you're right. We don't have any evidence for multiple lines of creation, particulularly with non carbon based lifeforms. but . . . hmm . . .as to the facts you disagree that this is a fact? you disagree that this is a fact? you disagree that Miller and Urey created said molecules? and that others have repeated the experiment with different possible early erath conditions? are you suggesting you know of life that isn't carbon based and uses DNA/RNA? as to the first part of this statement. it ties in with a creation event. that is, there was a time when the creation of life was possible. you may choose to believe that this was when God created life. you disagree that God did not have the conditions necessary for making life? especially given his omnipotent power, he could make those conditions exist whenever he wants. as to the second part, that about the conditions being around for quite some time, requires you to accept that the earth is roughly 4 billion years, and that the first evidence of life is around 3.6 billion years. that leaves 400 million years for that planet to cool down from initial creation to the early earth atmosphere. granted, you have to accept that this is fact, according to science.I don't think my hypothesis (what you called theory) is fact. it is, at best, a layman's interpretation of what could have happened. it is very difficult for me to travel back in time (as it is for all people) to see these events for my self. but logic tells me there are only a few possibilities based off of the facts at hand. and your's isn't?

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

you called my facts a collection of theories (understadning that theory was being used colloquiolly). I showed them again, asking you if you disagreed with each in or not, in specifics. It seems that you're claim that most of my "facts" were "theories" is falsified by your admission "That life exists here is an observed fact.", "Yep, fact. So what?", "I don't disagree they can CREATE such molecules","Once again, so what?", "but once again, so what? Organic molecules still exist on the earth, and probably exist elsewhere in the universe as well." in all but the first do you agree that they are facts. not a bunch of theories that I think are facts. don't make that claim again, considering you agree with the facts (with the exception of the first one, and I'm calling bull on your part).the reason I used the bible was to show you your inconsistency. the reason we (evolutionists) tend to use the bible for certain things (like the creation of life) is becuase you all (and the theistic evolutionists) are familiar with it. you may not accept abiogieneis, but you do accept that life was made. that sort of deal.as ot abiogenesis. we do not see it happening today. yo're right on that. the reason why? the conditions aren't right. just like you have to have the right conditions for salt to be a liquid, or for magnesium to react with hydrochloric acid, you have to have the right conditions for organic molecules to form. we know what those conditions are, and we know that the early earth atmosphere met those conditions. what is in dispute, as to the conditions, is how much of one thing there was over another. key is, you have to have a reducing atmosphere, not an oxidizing atmosphere to produce organic molecules. guess which one we have today (hint: it's one of the reasons that things decay, rust, etc.) Miller and Urey's experiment had the right atmosphere, but probably just the wrong quatntities of the gases, and yeah, they did create an early earth atmosphere, and their experiment has been repeated by others, to the same effect.I just love how you say evo's are making this claim that rare events are incredibly common, and that this is fallacious. first off, the evos that do this are the ones you consider antithetical to your view. I'm not arguing that it is rare or not--we don't know yet. but, given the time involved, it happened at least once (life being created), and could it happen again, quite possibly. It's rare that yuo'll pull an ace of spades from the top of the deck, but given millions of chances, I'm sure you could pull it at least a few times. Is that argument fallacious? no. I hope you catch the analogy. in refernce to my fact that at one point life did not exist. you state it is also probably true. let me ask you this--do you believe, or not beleive in the account in genesis. Do you beleive, or not believe that God created life. And if you do believe that God created life, do you agree, or disagree, that in order to create, that which is being created cannot have been there? If you agree that God created life, and that for creation to take place the object being created cannot have existed before, you're statement is the one that is wrong, illogical.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

I love how you avoided my questions in regards to your contradiction of believing in a creating event and saying that life might have always existed. and you still got me wrong with why I'm referencing the bible, as evidenced by Again, I ask you. Do you accept that God created life? (I know you do). Do you accept that life, at one point, did not exist? (based off of "A belief, not fact, but proabably true" lends me to think that you consider the possiblity that life has always existed. which leaves you with a contradiction. why do I think that you consider the possiblity that life has always existed? Let's take a look, shall we. You claim Woese identifies a major problem with ToE, provides solution of common descent. But you want to consider the possibility of no common descent, never mind the evidence against that position. Yet you still consider it. Now, we have the question of life existing. Evidence tells us life didn't exist. But when you state that that's a belief, you give yourself the way out and allow the possiblity that life may have always existed. which gives you a glaring contradiction between your belief in creation and life having always existed.)as to the rest,
do you not know what a theory is? or rather, a scientific one? after all this time on the board, I would think that yuo could have learned something about it.Do I know what the conditions were of the early earth atmoshere? No, I personally don't, but the scientists who study this subject have got some damned good estimates of what it was like. Good enough, that they feel safe enough to repeat experiements like Miller and Urey's. Especially the reducing part I mentioned. why? Check out our iron that we mine. It's been reduced, not oxidized. That'll only happen in a reducing atmoshpere. Today, iron rusts becuase of oxidation, not water, per se.as to miller's experiment. he still got it right. he had his best approximation of early earth atmosphere. And while today's models favor a lot more carbon dioxide, what he proved still holds true. Inorganic molecules can become organic given the right conditions. The chemistry isn't too horrendously difficult, is it?I learned something new thanks to you today. The possibility of life starting anew at those underwater vents. But as you always ask us, so I'll aks you. where's your concrete evidence that life is being started anew there all the time. You ask us for every fossil, I'll ask you for every life creation event at those vents. Like it when we play the same damn game?

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

we have a sample size of one. all life we know of is carbon based. does that mean that all other abiogenesis events should occur like this?no. it's flawed thinking at best. if you flip a coing once, and it lands on heads, it is safe to assume that all other flips will be heads? no. and guess what you're doing here.did you happen to know that on saturn's moon titan, one without water, they are contemplating that life there used methane (or CH4) inplace of water. And yes, they are seriously considering that life could have started on Titan, becuase you've got the right conditions.now then, what happens if they find life on Titan? that'll be an interesting question for you answer, depending on how it applies to you faith.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

I'll deal with this one first.A)life did not exist at one point
B)life did exist at one point, whether through God's creation or abiogenesis (aGod, to be simple)C)creation happened--life came to be.now let's look at what's required for creation to have happened.A)in order to be created, that something must be made
B)that something that must be made cannot have existed previously. other wise, what's the point of creation?You mean to tell me that your God, the one who you feel created life, after creating the universe, is so powerless that he's copying someone else's work?your position, so far as I can tell, is that life could have always existed, while at the same time your God created life into existence, from where there had been no life. can you tell me how this isn't contradictory?

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

How can life be non carbon based? let's take a look at what carbon is.It is a light atom. It can bond with 4 other atoms to make a stable molecule. It can make a bond in about any position. You can have carbon rings, tetrahedrons, cubes, spheres (though none in life processes, you basically need a star for that last one).It terms of bonding, it's a really good choice, becuase it's stable, there's a lot of it, and you can do a lot with it. But just how many other atoms are there like it?Let's look at silicon, in the same group (column) as carbon. Those in the same column share the same basic characteristics. First, it can also bond with 4 other atoms. It could concievably bond in the same shapes, but I'm not sure--I need the electronegativity numbers and a few other things. It's also relatively abundant on earth. after all, the largest group of rocks are the silicates, and they make up a very large chunk of the crust. so no problems with availability. Only problem with it is that it's more than twice as heavy, so you're more restricted.you can have a silicon based life form. probably not a germanium, tin, lead, or ununquandium based on--their metals, carbon and silicon aren't. all organic molecules are non-metals, but none are noble gases. We have Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorous. If you move to a silicon based on, it's possible to keep those same ones, or have a few different ones, or maybe more than those.what determines abiogenesis is chemical reactions. what we have is a very good estimate of what the early atmosphere was, and so long as the conditions are right, you could end up with a silicon based, instead of carbon based.what's wierder, is that it might, but in my opinion is not very likely, is have life based of other non-metal atoms.what would be even wierder, is if we found a metallic based lifeform.I can get back to you on abiogentic processes.oh, and just so you know, I'm not as stupid as you think. why?
I'm just about to start college. graduated from high school last may.
I'm already a sophomore, and will most likely be a junior after my first semester. how did I do this? AP (advanced placement) and IB (international bacaluareate)(I hate french words--none of the mmake any sense spelling wise) tests. I passed almost every single one I took--only failed computer programming and government. So don't be so quick to call me stupid. ignorant, on some things yes, but stupid, no.abe:
as to your circular reasoning comment, how is stating that
"one case of A does not mean that all cases are A" circular?
now, if you say that A is B and B is A, or that becasue of one case A all will be A, those are closer to, if not, circular reasoning. one without letters is this "the bible is true because the bible says it is true"Edited by kuresu, : No reason given.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

thanks for the congrats.as to miller and urey, so what if they got the atmosphere wrong. it was wrong in proportion of what was there, and it was the best estimate at the time. newer experiments, using newer models of the early earth atmosphere, also produced amino and nucleic acids, just not in as large a quantity. so they proved thier initial point--inorganic can yield to organic.we don't know if it only happened once. but the ways we are related are so similar so as to suggest a common ancestor(s). now then, unless your man in the sky is tricking us, why would the three domains be so like?and here's an interesting thought for you. if they don't share a genetic ancestry, as you claim, are that they were designed, do they still share a common ancestry? I'd say yes--same dude designed them. but I'm going to stick with the genetic ancestry. it's where the evidence is pointing to.you're right, I've got some catching up do to. I've only taken one year of college level biology--nowhere near the amount of class time to fully understand abiogenesis.as the silicon stuff, let's see if anyone else has anything to say on those possibilities.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences