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Author Topic:   Self-sustained Replication of an RNA Enzyme
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2923 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


(1)
Message 19 of 52 (560012)
05-12-2010 2:31 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by dcarraher
05-12-2010 1:07 PM


Re: The definition of life is ...
Hi, Dcarraher.
Welcome to EvC!
dcarraher writes:
First, a qualifier - in my responses, I will respond to multiple previous posters in a single post. This is not an indication that I am confusing who posted what, simply brevity for the sake of brevity.
You probably shouldn't do this: this board is set up so that responses can be linked to specific posts and posters, and many posters have it set up to get notification of a reply to one of their posts. It’s okay if all the messages you respond to come from the same poster (as I’m about to do here).
If you want to continue responding to multiple people in one post, you can do so by using the "Gen Reply" button at the bottom or top of the screen, rather than the "Reply" button at the bottom corner of an individual message.
Generally, it works better if you respond individually. Of course, this means you'll probably have to pick and choose which posts and points you respond to, and ignore the rest. But, it helps make the discussion more easy to follow.
-----
dcarraher writes:
In other words, there isn't a single element of what distinguishes biology from chemistry.
Message 7
I’m going to add my voice to Catholic Scientist’s and say that biology is basically chemistry. I’ll alter what CS said by stating that I consider biology to be a subset of chemistry that can be studied on a different scale (i.e. organisms instead of molecules). A life form is a relatively discrete microcosm of chemical reactions, and all its characteristics ultimately derive from its constituent chemical reactions.
This little RNA experiment is a great example of the middle ground between what would classically be called chemistry, and what would classically be called biology: it is, as you say, simply a chemical reaction happening; but, its occurrence displays some of the characteristics of what we consider life (namely, growth and evolution).
Doesn’t that make you at all curious about how it fits into the puzzle of what life is and where life comes from?
-----
dcarraher writes:
To an educated creationist, this article is so clearly irrelevant to the entire argument of abiogenesis, it shouldn't even need refuted. To an evolutionist, apparently, this is practically first life, and a clear refutation of any creationist concerns over the impracticability of abiogenesis. Ah, well.
You’ve clearly exaggerated the point of view of evolutionists here. If a healthy, stimulating debate is what you're after, I recommend avoiding caricatures and focusing on arguments, rather than people.
From what I’ve read so far, nobody has yet claimed this to be anything more than a demonstration that the RNA World hypothesis, or something similar to it, is a feasible explanation for at least part of the process of abiogenesis. This can therefore serve as a justification for further funding and implementation of more research into the RNA World hypothesis; but it is not being taken as the silver bullet against creationism.
Science is never specifically about what one is showing now, but always about how our current and future picture of the world is changed by what one is showing now. Iblis has provided a great demonstration of this in his brief discussion. The whole point of science is to get people like Iblis to start thinking critically about what needs to be done next to fill in the remaining gaps in our understanding.
Abiogenesis is a very tough thing to show, and I’m confident that it is a vanishingly small minority of biologists and other scientists who believe that one experiment is the final word on any given topic. Most of us reach our air of finality when we connect the dots between this little experiment and the hundreds of other, similar little experiments that have been done before it.
-----
dcarraher writes:
dcarraher writes:
Now, maybe if the experiment had started with amino acids, and ended with DNA, you might have something...
Fixed. Mea culpa. Congratulations, you've scorned a typo.
DNA also isn’t made of amino acids.
DNA and RNA are both nucleic acids (that’s what the NA stands for).
I repeat Cavediver’s sentiment: either way (RNA or DNA), it would have been a very remarkable experiment, indeed.
-----
dcarraher writes:
If there is no clear demarcation [between life and non-life], then what is abiogenesis all about?
Is it your view that we should only study things that are clearly demarcated?
Is the emergence of life any less intriguing if we can’t easily delimit what life is? I don’t see how that could be: it seems to make it more intriguing, at least to me.
Part of the reason for exploring the emergence of life is to fuel the quest to understand what life actually is.
-----
dcarraher writes:
So, at the end of the day, you have an interesting chemical reaction that is interesting not because of any relevance to abiogenesis (you haven't gone anywhere - you end up with more of what you already started with)...
That’s the whole point! Life is just more of what it started with: chemistry, building on top of chemistry. We don’t need to go anywhere, we just need more of what we already started with. This experiment is just one tiny piece of a large puzzle that shows that life is a case of more chemistry than what it originally had! This is precisely why this experiment is interesting!
Edited by Bluejay, : "against" and "fits into"

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by dcarraher, posted 05-12-2010 1:07 PM dcarraher has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by dcarraher, posted 05-13-2010 1:48 PM Blue Jay has seen this message but not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2923 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


(1)
Message 42 of 52 (560158)
05-13-2010 3:08 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by dcarraher
05-13-2010 2:00 PM


Re: Definition of Life
Hi, Dcarraher.
dcarraher writes:
I really have no response to those of who insist that biology and chemistry are so closely related that there is no difference...
...Let's file this one under the heading of "agree to disagree"...
This is such a central part of the debate, that I'm not convinced we can even continue this debate if we don't get into discussing the differences between chemistry and biology.
At any rate, I think you misunderstood what we have tried to convey. I think it’s understandable that you misunderstood, because it’s a pretty subtle thing we’re saying.
I’m confident that nobody here believes chemistry = biology. If I’m wrong, I’m sure those who disagree will reply and tell me so.
What we said was that there is no distinction. That is, there are no characteristics that neatly divide biology and chemistry into two clearly different things. This is not to say that biology and chemistry are the same thing, or to say that life is not a unique and remarkable phenomenon.
What it means is that we now know that molecules can do all the things we used to think only life could do: self-replicate, grow, and now, thanks to this RNA experiment, evolve. We have run out of ways to define life such that it is clearly different from things that we would not consider to be life.
As we scrutinize more and more the boundary between "life" and "non-life," we see less and less reason to call it a "boundary," and more and more reason to call it just another point on the spectrum.
-----
dcarraher writes:
If I find the distinction between chemistry and biology to be pretty clear, at the very least I am not alone.
I read the phrase, ...just mindless atoms pushing and pulling on each other, kicked about by random thermal fluctuations from the Davies quote and conclude that physicist Paul Davies also thinks that life is basically just chemistry. Certainly, he thinks it is remarkable chemistry, but then again, so do the rest of us.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by dcarraher, posted 05-13-2010 2:00 PM dcarraher has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2923 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 48 of 52 (560352)
05-14-2010 2:57 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by dcarraher
05-13-2010 2:35 PM


Death
Hi, Dcarraher.
dcarraher writes:
Similarly, "Life" is qualitatively different than "Non-Life" even if not in a form that is measurable materialistically... what is the difference between a live cat and dead cat? A quantum of time. Materially they could be exactly identical.
Is it your position that death does not have a materialistic cause?
What do you make of an autopsy, in which the purpose is to determine "cause of death"? Is such work futile?
It seems to me that the difference between a living cat and a dead cat is...
...the amount of blood they have lost.
or
...the amount of physical deterioration due to a terminal disease, infection or other condition.
or
...the prevalance of failures of necessary chemical reactions in the body due to oxygen depravation.
or
...etc.
It seems to me that organisms only die in conjunction with some type of materialistic change that results in cessation of function. They don't die unless something is different.
-----
P.S. Although it seems unlikely now, I hope you choose to stay here. It's not everyday we see a creationist who can write as coherently and fluently as you can.
Edited by Bluejay, : Superfluous "that"

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by dcarraher, posted 05-13-2010 2:35 PM dcarraher has not replied

  
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