How did it start?

My question is, if the Miller experiement went that far, why couldn't they go further and create something that everyone would agree was "life"? What was the obstacle that stopped the process there?

This was not what I was asking about, and you know it:1. My question had to do with the first life form--as you well know.
I admit I asked it in the wrong discussion group. My bad on that count.
2. Now your argument, if I understand it correctly, can be summarized as follows: Life is constantly coming from non-life in the sense that we eat things that are not alive and through a chemical process our bodies turn that foodstuff into living tissue.What is it that we eat? It seems like we mostly just eat stuff that was recently alive. But I suppose we ingest chemicals that contain nothing that was at one time organic, so I'll waive that point.But this has nothing to do with empirical evidence for life from non-life in the beginning. Because in the beginning, there was not any life to eat any of the non-life and turn it into something organic.So according to your scenario, non-life "ate" other non-life and this produced life. But that is not the same as life already established eating non-life and turning it into life.So I think you can see that this argument you put forth has no merit.I nor you were produced by non-life. We were produced by living mothers.That's why I said, "Not very persuasive." And now you tell me that I do not treat you with enough respect.However, if I misunderstood your argument, I apologize.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 12-15-2004 05:43 PM

Ummmm, like their labratory wasn't the size of the planet Earth and they didn't run the experiment for a couple of billion years maybe ?!

Which is made out of non-living things. How do we know this? Because that's where all living things come from - non-living material. Why would the first one be different? It's entirely the same; "eating" isn't magic. It's just a kind of chemistry. Non-living matter reacts chemically to exactly the same degree that living matter does. Out of non-living things. Through chemistry. Which is exactly where the first life came from; non-living things, through chemistry. But again, your rebuttal is just a kind of crypto-vitalism - the idea that the chemistry of living things is somehow fundamentally, unbridgably different than the chemistry of non-living things, because it's endowed with some kind of living force.There's no such force, and nothing happens when you or I eat that couldn't be replicated by entirely non-living chemistry.

I think it is a bit strong to say no merit. However, I agree that it is a very weak argument.Perhaps a better view of it would be to note that at every level life is just chemistry. The deep question is to find the simplist form of chemistry that can have some kind of imprefect "reproductive" capacity.A number of differnt experimental results have been referenced here at EvC on this question. I'll see if I can find them.To summarize what I think might be the argument:
1) There is no barrier to chemistry crossing the threashold to life. In fact, it is very hard to define where the threashold is or was.2) We have bits and pieces of steps that could cross the threashold but haven't gotten the whole thing linked up as yet.3) We may never (short of visiting planets in the condition of the early Earth) have a very sure idea of exactly what pathway was taken here. My feeling is that we will be in this state not because we have a hard time finding a way for life to arise but because we will find too many ways and not know which one actually occured. The other obvious reason we will not be sure is because all traces are almost certainly gone by now.That's about all you're going to get right now. I'll just see if I can find some of the references to the details.

That's what I've been trying to get him to see all along. The reason that my argument appears "weak" is because I'm phrasing it in such a way as to lead Robin into rebutting it exactly the way I want him/her to do.The idea that living things are different has no merit. Living things are just matter involved in certain kinds of chemistry, and there's no reason to believe that chemical arrangement wouldn't have a chemical origin, and every reason to believe that it would.

I believe the question was about empirical evidence for the first life coming from non-life. The situation you offer as "evidence" is totally different from the original situation, so it cannot be evidence.What you have is a plausible analogy: We eat non-life and make life out of it; therefore, non-life can "eat" non-life and make life out of it. well, maybe.Now as far as your charge that I am invoking "vitalism" in a sinister sort of way. This is another example of your tendency to jump to conclusions. Where did I mention "vitalism"? Nowhere. You brought that up. I don't KNOW how life formed, and I was wondering what evidence there was.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 12-15-2004 01:57 PM

No, it's not. It's not the the least bit different, which has been the point of a number of posts from me to you, but you have ignored those points. Hell, you did it just now. You don't, of course, say the word "vitalism", but you hold the vitalist position: "Make life"? "Eat"? What relevance do those have to the question, which is one of chemistry, unless you're still viewing life through the lens of vitalism, where life and non-life are fundamentally different?For god's sake, get my argument straight already. The process by which non-living matter is incorporated into living things is chemical. Therefore there's no reason to believe that the process by which non-living matter was incorporated into the first living thing was anything but chemical.It's very, very simple. But you seem determined to misunderstand at every possible juncture.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 12-15-2004 01:53 PM

It is simple but it is only the barest of starting points.Once we agree that there is no real barrier between chemistry and life (that is we aren't arguing vitalism) we are still left with how do we go from clearly non-living to something that is arguably living.What Robin is asking about is what evidence do we have to lead us to understand how this happened. I hope that s/he isn't saying that it can't happen (that would be disengenous given what her recent posts have been saying).ABEWell maybe there is a bit of a problem when I read "empirical evidence for life coming from non-life". (emphasis mine). That suggests that there is some doubt that it can happen at all. Which is at odds with some other points Robin has made.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 12-15-2004 02:07 PM

Robin's not asking for the specific pathway. Robin's asking for the evidence that the pathway exists. That's not in the least what Robin has been asking for.

Yea, well, you ignored my ABE. I'm not sure that Robin is willing to be completely clear on just what is being asked for and not.Besides I'm feeling generally very cranky and not at all Xmasy. So I'm trying to make things difficult for both sides.

I don't think it was there when I started my message. Well, you've certainly succeeded. Add a bit more brandy to the nog, I'd say. That always infuses me with Christmas spirit - some kind of spirit, anyway.

Originally I asked about empirical evidence for evolution, and Ned and others provided me with excellent evidence. I accepted evolution before on authority but I was a little vague about the details. That was cleared up, more or less.Then I switched gears in the wrong forum, and asked what the evidence was for life coming from nonlife (same question I had about TOE). I think how you can see that this would be a natural next step in my education.I receive this argument from Crashfrog which is not evidence at all, just a plausible idea. But he calls it "evidence."I conclude from this that the evidence for evolution is just about certain evidence and the evidence for life from non-life is not certain at all. Of course one can say, what else could life come from? Answer: I don't know.Now this seems very straightforward to me.Are you suggesting that if I accept TOE, I have to accept abiogenesis?I have one other question: If non-life interacted with other non-life and produced life, is that process still going on? Or does all life nowadays come from other life?

I'd have to say that this is a reasonable position.For myself, not knowing, isn't a good enough reason to contemplate jumping away from suspecting a natural sequence of events. For others it might be. Those who make that jump are going against the tide of history is all.

Ned, what about that question I asked in my last post? (I meant, of course, on this earth).